My Aura...

I don't know how accurate these kinds of things are, but one thing is definitely true...I am Blue!

Your Aura is Blue

Spiritual and calm, you tend to live a quiet but enriching life. You are very giving of yourself. And it's hard for you to let go of relationships. The purpose of your life: showing love to other people Famous blues include: Angelina Jolie, the Dali Lama, Oprah Careers for you to try: Psychic, Peace Corps Volunteer, Counselor

What Color Is Your Aura?

(Ha! Like "Psychic" is a career! Where's the "Nursing", "School teacher", "Hospice Care" that I usually get for these types of things?)

Tricked out RV

I've been flying absolutely crazy hours the past four days. It was all red-eye flying...where I'd leave Washington DC at 4pm, fly to the west coast and then straight back to DC again. We arrived at 6am, headed to the hotel and sleep for a few hours before starting the process all over again. So it was all I could do to check my email through my bleary eyes before my head hit the pillow.

But I'm home now, happy to see Doc and hear his stories from his first week doing rotations in the hospital. He started out with a bang in GYN, standing in during hysterectomies and other procedures. Last night he was on call in the OB dept., and had 2 C-sections and 3 regular births. I love hearing about his adventures and the people he's meeting.

I'm also happy to be back with Bunch & Gator, who were with their cousins while I was gone. I'm very grateful for my S&B-in-law who are so gracious about keeping them for us sometimes. I know they're pretty easy punks to have around, but it's still a tremendous service that I don't take for granted. And this time was especially hard, because they had 11 kids under their roof at one point (watching other cousins too). ELEVEN! And then the flu hit fast and furious, taking out my SIL and 6 of the kids. I can only imagine, and am still hoping my punks are spared...so far so good.

So what the heck is Tricked out RV?

Well I have a pilot friend who lives in Montana, but he has a cool camper-van-RV dealio that he keeps in California . Now I've been inside an RV before, but never actually driven around in one. Growing up I remember thinking that it would be the ultimate fort...and harbored secret fantasies that my parents would buy one and put it in our back yard so that I could live in there instead of in the garage with all the bugs.

That never happened, but my friend generously offered his RV to me to take the kids for a week of beach camping in CA. He gave me a thorough tutorial in how to operate everything, handed me the key, and now we're good to go. It's got a shower, toilet, fridge, stove, sink, TV/VCR, and all the regular comforts of home, just waiting for us to enjoy them. There's a campground at the State Beach which has RV Camping. The online reservation site is all booked up, but I'm hoping they have a few slots available for 1st come-1st served walkup. There is some mention of that. If so, then we are going to have us a fun little RV beach campout. If not, we'll have ourselves a fun little RV campout. Somewhere. And we have a lot of other exciting things in store for us too, which I'm not going to write about since The Bunchkin reads my blog and it's fun to surprise my kids with happy adventures. We're super excited.

So we're off again in a couple days. It is only right, as my sisters are currently in Italy and Tahiti. I know we were just in Puerto Rico 2 weeks ago. But Italy and Tahiti?!! Freak. Plus Doc could use the peace and quiet when he's home trying to catch some zzzz's.

I don't know if I'll have internet access, but will document our adventures as soon as I can. Meanwhile, what are you up to??? Anything on the docket, or are you living each day spontaneously? I'd love to hear your plans. And any RVing advice you may have. Toodles!
♥

Half Done...

Just thought I'd let ya'll know that I'm 1/2 done with my Couch to 5K training program, and YAY ME! I haven't missed a single workout! Anyone who knows me knows how huge this is for me. I've been a computer potato for so long...

And happy day, the scale has started to slide in the other direction...which I'm thrilled about because let's just say it wasn't headed north due to increased muscle mass. More like increased pie consumption. But that's another matter which you can ask me about later.

The best news is that I've been able to just get out there, do my running assignment for the day, and finish without knee pain! You can't buy that kind of gratitude man. Pain is miserable. I really feel for all the lovely people who live with pain every day, and cherish the fact that right now I'm pain-free.

The trick this week is going to be getting my run in between flights. I am pulling all-nighters every night starting Wednesday...with just 9 hours on the ground to get to the hotel, day-sleep, and get back on the van to the airport again. I'll barely have enough time to catch 8 winks to renew me for another night of red-eye turns, but I'm determined not to miss any of my runs. So I'll be chugging along the streets of DC at dawn this Friday morning. Honk if you see me! ♥

"Photos!" They clammored.

So here they are. Random shots from our week in the tropics.
♥

Tomorrow

Tomorrow begins the third year of medical school for Doc.

Since I knew nothing about how this whole process worked before I had a spouse going through it, probably some of you are in the dark too. So in a nutshell, the first two years of med school consist of your traditional classroom instruction and exams. More or less like the experience most people have in college, only instead of your instructors turning a garden hose of information on you, in medical school it's more like a fire hose is unleashed, and it's aimed straight at your head, and you're expected to swallow every last drop of information and regurgitate it on the exams that come at you fast and furious.

Doc handled that part no sweat. He's a born student, that one. (Okay, he'd refute my "no sweat" claim. But I'm just keeping it all relative...because compared to say, ME, he handled it no sweat. I mean, hardly even a drop of perspiration. But he's too modest to say so himself.)

The third year is when the students start their hospital clerkships, more commonly known as rotations, in different areas of medicine. Each student spends six weeks on each rotation, eventually gaining exposure to the various facets of medicine. Obviously, since they can't have a hundred eager beaver medical students following the surgery team around all at once, the student's schedules are divided up so only a few are on each rotation at a time. Most of Doc's study buddies ("The Girls") are starting Internal Medicine in the morning, which is intense in it's own way. But not Doc. Oh no, not Doc.

GYN. As in OB/GYN. As in Pap Smears and Pelvic Exams. That's what he's starting with tomorrow morning. (I feel sorry for females suddenly!) Three exciting weeks of GYN followed by three weeks of OB, in two different hospitals. Yep...he's starting out with a bang (or poke, as the case may be). Way to dive in and immerse yourself in patient care Doc! It's like the polar bear swim they had every winter up in Vermont...not for the faint of heart.

At our quarterly crepe party last night with his study buddies, The Girls and other students there were all atwitter about tomorrow. The best analogy they could offer that would be in my limited realm of experience is how it felt before the first day of high school. You're kind of excited, but also keenly aware that you're going to be the little fish in the big pond, and the upper classmates are going to be drilling you on things and trying to make you look stupid. But at least they won't be rated by their upper classmates on a -10 to +10 scale (written on paper plates and held up for all to see) based entirely on their appearance as they walk into the facility. (As a freshman, I was a -8, which was just a foreshadow of the experiences to come. Ahh, good times!)

Tomorrow he's got an easy 8:00 a.m. start, because they have a little orientation to get things rolling. But that'll be the end of his "lazy mornings" because it's a pretty intense rotation. Following OB/GYN, he moves on to Surgery (which is a pretty rigorous clerkship too). So we won't be seeing much of Doc for the rest of the summer, which is why I'm so grateful to have the memories of our time together last week in Puerto Rico. Oh, I still have to put up a slideshow of that trip on here. Thanks for the reminder. I'll get that up tomorrow.

I'm grateful for all those who will be pitching in and helping me out with Bunch & Gator care. I fly later this week, and am blessed that their aunt and uncle are willing to just take them home for some rollicking good cousin times. Once school starts for the kids next month, I'll have to find a local solution for managing child care while Doc's gone and I'm flying. But things always work out in life, and I'm confident that a way for us to do what we need to will present itself.

Here's to all the patients everywhere who are about to be seen by doctors and their green med students in the coming days! Thanks for your patience as they learn how to work with patients! ♥

Four Books

This past week I read four different books which, in keeping with my new resolve to document, I will note here. My rating system will be a 1-5 ♥ scale...with 5 being the highest recommendation. If I ever give something more than 5♥, that means it utterly rocked my world. Don't hold your breath!

• Saturday by Ian McEwan. ♥♥♥
  This story got off to a slow start for me. I brought it on our trip to read, and I swear I read the first page about 8 times before I finally managed to focus in and get my head in the story...which I finally did. The whole book transpires in one day, so there is a ton of introspection and internal dialogue. It's not a fast read. I gave it 3 hearts because I enjoy medical stories, but if you don't, your mileage may vary.
• Loved Like That by Julie Wright ♥♥♥♥♥
  I was running on very little sleep from our travels home, but decided to just read the first few pages of this book by my friend Julie Wright before I went to bed. At 5:30 a.m. I turned the last page and finished the thing. I paid for it all the next day, but I guess I'm a sap for stories like this one. Thanks Julie! I'll never recoup that night of lost sleep, but I enjoyed your story greatly. I should note that it's LDS Fic. But if you're the intended audience, then you'll definitely enjoy Loved Like That.
  
• To Catch a Falling Star by Julie Wright ♥♥♥♥♥
  So you'd think I'd have learned my lesson. But Noooo! I woke up after my all-nighter and dove right into this next Julie Wright book and perpetuated the sleep deprivation. Again, she's a delightful story teller. Maybe I'm biased, because I happen to like the author so much and she's a friend of mine. But I think any LDS'r would enjoy this one without reservation.
• Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock ♥♥♥♥
  This book just reached in, grabbed my heart, squeezed hard and twisted it right around. It was a tough subject matter for me to read about. You can read the bit on Amazon if you'd like the summary. Only four hearts because the subject matter isn't for everyone. But it really worked itself under my skin.
  

Sole's Favorite Things Package!

Remember last month when I wrote about a Favorite Things Swap? I had a few concerns...based on all the chain letters and things like that which I've done in my youth. But, I decided to go for it...live on the wild side of life for once. I sent my information in to Kelly, who was organizing the whole thing.

Kelly paired me up with a darling young mom named Sole ("Soul-eee") who has a new blog. I read Sole's blog and then sent her a little package of some of my favorite things. I hope that she likes them!

Just now her package arrived. So fun! Want to see???

Here's the box. Let's open it up!

That tissue looks familiar! What's under it?

How cute is this?

• A great Meals in Minutes cookbook (which Bunch immediately declared perfect for starting to cook with...thanks Sole!)
• Yummy Cherry Oat Crunch pie topping...which means I'll just HAVE to make PIE, which is one of my most very favorite things in the WORLD, as my thighs will unfortunately attest
• Cute Cherry note cards which I love because you just can't have too many of those
• And a perfectly adorable white with red -trim bowl. I love it! Love it all!
  

Thank you so much Sole! It's perfect!!!

And thanks Kelly! This was fun! ♥

Trivia about our founding fathers

The Declaration of Independence essentially said that the American Colonies wanted their freedom from England. Fifty-six of our Founding Fathers knowingly laid their lives, liberty and honor on the line when they signed that Declaration. It took eight years of war to win our Independence. In that war, nine of the signers were killed in action, five died as prisoners of war, 12 had homes burned, several lost sons, one man's wife died in prison and 16 went broke. We are all beneficiaries of their sacrifice, and I feel so grateful for all who paved the way for us to live with the freedoms we enjoy today.

♥

Fourth of July Parade

Two years ago yesterday, we pulled into our driveway for the first time. Three terrific guys, Scott, Miles & McKay appeared and helped us unload our belongings from the moving truck, and when we were finished, they told us about the parade that would take place the next morning to celebrate the 4th of July.

It's the best neighborhood parade! A completely small town deal...kids on bicycles, homemade floats etc. Anyone is free to march in it, you just have to show up. So lots of families have an annual tradition of dressing up and starting their July 4th celebration by participating in this parade. The kids love it because the people in the parade throw loads of sweets out to the crowds. My own two punks reminded me of pigeons...darting out and about snatching up any candy that was within their reach. "Our pumpkins are empty!" they said, to justify themselves (they keep any treats they get during the year in their Halloween pumpkins). I tried to make sure they shared with those less-aggressive kids around them.

Patriotism always chokes me up, and today was no exception. I love this country, the principles it was established upon, the people who labored so hard to get it started, those who have fought to preserve it, and the good people still fighting to hold it together. There is no shortage of people who would destroy our constitution given the chance, and I'm so grateful for all who defend it. I know it was inspired.

I snapped a few pictures to capture the feel of this great annual neighborhood event.

Bunch & Gator waiting for the start.

Our local motorcop brigade clears the route for the start of the parade.

Bunch, Blue & Gator

Unicycle boys...impressive!

Go BYU & UofU!

My friends Michelle & Betsy with some of their kids

Colonial musicians.

Vote! Because we can.

Gator liked this Peter Pan & Cap'n Hook Float.

The bubbles were a nice effect on this cute float.

The Hinckley float...an annual tradition. He and his family lived here.Be Grateful
Be Smart
Be Clean
Be True
Be Humble
Be Prayerful

Have a wonderful Fourth of July celebration today! God Bless our America! ♥

Here's To...

• All those who've fought throughout history for freedom, liberty and human rights.
• Those who struggle with mental health problems that they just can't help.
  
• The people who live in run down, impoverished areas throughout the earth...even though they're no less important than those who don't.
  
• Kids who aren't in safe situations.
• People who are hungry.
• Anyone who ever had a positive change of heart.
  
• The homeless, the downtrodden, the anguished of soul.
• Those who have ever struggled with their weight.
• Everyone who ever set a good example.
• People who have low self-esteem because they can't see who they really are.
  
• Parents who teach their children correct principles and values.
• The artists who add beauty to the world through their creative endeavors.
• People who share freely.
  
• Gardeners everywhere...I love beautiful gardens.
  
• The writers who inspire, entertain and teach with their works.
• People who sacrifice time, means and resources to serve others.
• People who've managed to make peace with their enemies and those who've been a challenge to them.
• Great fathers.
• The unemployed who are trying to find work.
  
• Visionaries and innovators.
  
• Every random act of kindness ever done.
• The woman in an abusive situation who doesn't know how to get out of it.
  
• Students all over the world at any age who are striving to learn and grow.
• Great bloggers...you're changing lives.
• Farmers and ranchers who do hard, physical labor every day to supply the world with food.
• Knowledgeable doctors who care.
• People who are humble.
• Mothers.
  
• Great musicians...your music fills my soul.
  
• Children who remind me of what really matters in life.
• People who are there for others in times of need.
• Good people everywhere who make life better, one moment at a time. Here's to all of you. May peace be yours ♥