Love That Lasts a Lifetime

   This past week, I spent a day accompanying a hospice nurse on her home visits to terminally ill patients.  They were all in pretty good spirits that day, and I really enjoyed chatting with the spunky elderly ones.  It was amazing how the elderly couples took such great care of each other.  It was so touching to see the spouses of the patients providing support and love to them, as their life begins to wind down, knowing that they've had a long journey together to get to this point.  I really hope that when I'm old and on my way out, I'm lucky enough to have someone (who loves me) taking care of me, and a loving family to visit me.  

  

   The other day, BF and I spontaneously decided to go out to the pub where we had our first date. We hadn't been back since our first date, which was about a year ago. As we were walking up to the door, I asked BF, "When we came here for our first date a year ago, did you know we'd be lovers forever?" And he said, "No, but I do now."

   That place always has surprises in store for us, because when we walked in this time, two of our good friends had randomly decided to go there that night too, and had just arrived. In addition, the pub was celebrating some sort of anniversary and was giving away prizes. Out of all the people there that night, BOTH BF and I won tshirts!

   The owner came over to chat with us, congratulating us on our luck, and I told him, "This place is lucky to us.  We had our first date here about a year ago."  And some lady at the table next to us goes, "AWWWWWW!!!" Hahahahaha.

Continuing our silly game of drawing each other pictures when we study

   Also, I added some cute decorations to the kitchen.  And in case you are wondering what the letters stand for on the chalkboard hearts on a string, it's B-A-M-Z-S, for our names and our pet's names.  Feel free to barf now, I give you permission.

I Can Feel Again

   So far, this year has been going really well.  I started my Primary Care rotation at Kaiser, and I like it!   My preceptors are all really friendly, laid-back, and most of them are really good with their patients.  I'm getting a little bored of rashes, colds, and "aches & pains", but overall, I like talking to the patients.  And sometimes, they come in, and you give them something that actually really helps them.

   I really like the Kaiser-type work environment.  I'm sure it'd be somewhat different for OB-Gyn than it is for primary care, but nevertheless, KP takes pretty good care of its employees, and I like that.

   I'm also just generally feeling much better.  The last couple of months before break, I was feeling super numb, burned out, and anhedonic.  Three weeks of vacation was absolutely necessary in my returning-to-normal, as was some sessions with the school psychologist, finishing the worst rotation ever (peds), and lots of puppy-time.  I finally feel like I'm getting back to my normal self, and enjoying things again.

   Training the puppy has been a blast.  When people told us beforehand that it was going to be like having a baby, I didn't understand what they meant, but it really is like having a baby!  Except, as a puppy, he is more in the "terrible twos"-toddler stage, where he gets into trouble all the time.  The first week or so, he would cry in his crate every night, which I was expecting, but I have never heard such a shrill, jarring noise come from an animal!  And when we would try to walk him, he would just go around us in circles on the leash, stop to smell everything, and just stop sometimes.  We've had him for three weeks now, and he has come a long way.  Now, when we put him to bed at night, he actually goes into his crate by himself, lies down, and then just sighs in defeat before he goes to sleep quietly.  He is also doing much better in the potty-training area, and hasn't had any accidents in over a week!  At first, I don't think he understood what it meant to hold his bladder, but now he goes to the door, and just sits there and stares at you when he wants to be let out - it's so cute.  It's amazing how fast a puppy can learn, but it's a lot of work, and he is a pretty good puppy.  I shlove him.

"I"m gonna take YOU for a walk!"

"Squirrel!"

Poopin-face

BF: "Why did you take a picture of me 'beating' the dog?!"
Me: "It looks like you're rubbing his tummy!"
LOL

Hello 2013, I've Been Expecting You

   I can never seem to get my New Year resolution blog post up until a week after NYE - but better late than never!  Today marks the last day of our three week break from third year clerkships, and I am feeling more rested now, but I am so glad I'm on an "easier" rotation next (primary care).  The first week and a half of break were fun, and were mostly spent flying off to the east coast, running around meeting up with BF's family and friends, which was super fun, but it got a bit tiring towards the end.  Then, when we got back, we went straight to my family's house, and stayed there for a few days, until I got really sick with the flu on NYE.  Unfortunately, I was so sick that I spent all of NYE sleeping and puking, and BF spent the whole time taking care of me and puppy.  Since then, we've been having a nice little staycation, which was much needed to take care of all the boring things we've been neglecting in life, like cleaning the house, grocery shopping, paying bills - but meh, who likes doing any of that anyway?!

   We've had our puppy (Melvin) for exactly a week now, and he is so cute!  Training him has been exhausting and has made me not want to have kids for a while, and sometimes he is such a brat, but then he gives me his little puppy-dog-eyes, and then I just melt. 

Well, let's get on with it.  Here are last year's resolutions revisited:

1. "Continue a healthy lifestyle":  Well, this one was on and off, as it usually is.  I gained some weight during boards and the surgery clerkship.  Towards the end of 2012, I started to get more diet-conscious, and I even lost a bit of weight.  I still haven't been great about exercising though.
2. "Gun it up for boards (in non-malicious way)":  Hell yeah, I did this!  Studying for boards was no doubt the hardest I have ever worked, and it totally paid off.   Mission accomplished! 
3. "Maintain a balanced, happy life with boards studying (and later with clinical rotations)": Yeahhhhh... about this one.  Not so much.  I'm still working on this whole work-life-balance-with-such-little-free-time thing.  I have my ups and downs, and I'm meeting with the school psychologist this week to discuss some better strategies, so hopefully I'll make some progress on this one. 
4. "Blog more": Yay! I did really well with this one.  I blogged double what I did last year! 

New resolutions for 2013:

1. Re-find my happy place:  I really want to fix my work-life balance, and use what little free time I have to do fun, relaxing stuff - and actually enjoy it.  Maybe I just need to change things up, maybe I just need to figure some stuff out, who knows.  This year I want to try new things, be spontaneous, relive old things I once loved, create new traditions.  I just want to live more this year, and not let med school get the best of me.
2. Become an OB/Gyn rockstar:  After a couple of meetings with my advisor, I have a lot of work to do.  I am going to be creating my own research project (GASP!), helping a resident with a separate research project, applying for a regional MSFC officer position, and starting up an OB/Gyn journal club.  Gives me palpitations just thinking about it all.  It's all things I really want to do, and if BF and I want to be super competitive in the couples' match, I gotta do work.
3. Train Melvie:  This is already proving to be harder than I thought.  Having a puppy really is like having a toddler.  Fortunately, after one week of having him, he is already getting better about crate training, walking and potty training, but it's gonna be a long haul, and he has a lot of learning to do.  The next few months will be hard, but it will totally be worth it when he is an adorable and well-behaved dog.
4. Keep a cleaner house: I've been such a slob lately, and I've realized that I feel a lot less stressed when the house is clean.  I need to maintain it at a certain level of clean more often, so it doesn't get out of hand - because that drives me nuts.
5. Be more of a morning person:  I saw this on Bybun, and I thought it was such a great idea.  Every morning, I am an utter zombie, spacing out, doing absolutely nothing, and wasting tons of precious time that could be spent eating a better breakfast, putting on makeup, doing my hair, putting on jewelry, etc.  I used to enjoy the mornings more, but having to wake up at 4am for certain clerkships changed that, so I'd like to get back to listening to good music, enjoying my coffee/tea, pretty-fying myself, and now I'll have to make time to take care of Melvie too!

Looks like I have my work cut out for me!  Here's to 2013!  2012 was full of big changes and milestones, and I know this next year is going to be full of them too.  I can't wait.