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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Getting Coated


"You never forget the moment you become a doctor. A switch flips, suddenly you aren’t playing dress up anymore. You own the white coat. What you may not notice is the moment that being a doctor changes you "


The White Coat Ceremony is a day that every medical student will tell you they look forward to from the time they decided to go to medical school. Its kind of a big deal. The white coat represents our commitment to medicine, the hard work that we've done to get here and the hard work that we'll continue to do. It represents everything we've ever wanted to be. I have been counting down to receiving that coat with my name on it for as long as I can remember. Its hard to believe that yesterday was the day.  With the words "welcome to the medical family" the key note speaker made me realized my dream of being a physician was coming true. Sure I've been in medical school for 6 months and I've certainly come to the realization of the work making my dream come true entails but until yesterday it hadn't hit me.  Putting on that coat made me realize where I am and what I'm doing. As I stood reciting the pledge of commitment to our profession with the rest of my class in our newly adorned white coats I couldn't help but smile. I'm so excited for the things that lie ahead of me and the doors this path will open for me. I'm proud to say I've officially been coated!







We opened the ceremony with the reading of "The Physician's Prayer" so Im going to end this post with it:
"Lord, Thou Great Physician, I kneel before Thee. Since every good and perfect gift must come from Thee: 
I Pray
Give skill to my hand, clear vision to my mind, kindness and sympathy to my heart. Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift at least a part of the burden of my suffering fellow men, and a true realization of the rare privilege that is mine. Take from my heart all guile and worldliness, that with the simple faith of a child I may rely on Thee.
Amen"

Thursday, January 20, 2011

glamour shots

We have finally gotten more engagement pictures back and I just wanted to make a quick post to share some of my favorites! I know alot of you are my facebook friends and have probably already seen them but for the rest of you guys I'll show off a few of them :) They were taken at Railroad square art Park in Tallahassee, Fl which offers an amazing array of backdrops for photos. Lindsey Miller of LindesyLou Photography took them. take a look!








Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Save our Date!

Our Save the Dates are officially ordered! Im very excited about them it took me excruciating amount of time to decide what pictures and what order I wanted on them but I'm very pleased with the outcome and I hope our friends and family will love them as well!

the most exciting part? they were super cheap! I was considering going through vistaprint which has great deals but decided to look at Shutterfly just to compare this morning because I had a random 20 dollar off coupon (here comes the back story: ) Last weekend I took Doctor Bridesmaid over to Tampa to try on and order her bridesmaid dress. When we got into David's Bridal it was a MAD house, literally it looked like those rack sales in new york where people throw bows to buy designer dresses for $4. I instantly assumed there was some sort of event going on so I asked the guy at the front "oh whats going on is there a sale or something?" he chuckled and looked at me like I was an idiot and replied " um, its Saturday?" Apparently the Tampa David's Bridal (which is an hour away from me) is the only one within about an hour on either side of Tampa as well as serving the entire Tampa area, so needless to say It gets crowded on Saturday.  In anycase we went about our busniess and I happened to pick up a little coupon bag that had this shutterfly coupon for 20$ off an order of 20$ or more. so I snagged it.

back to the point. I opened up shutterfly and they happen to be having a one day sale whereall photocards are 20% off ( score) and then they are having a one week promotion where you get free shipping on orders over 40$ (score again) and then I had my David's Bridal coupon (triple score). So the Grand total of our Save the Dates (all 125 of them, including shipping)?
drum roll please
......
$34.50
!!!!

I was amazed, and happy and excited and feel like ive done my bargain hunting for the day!
My advice to anyone ordering anything in bulk like this is just wait around and keep checking between emails and one day promotions on websites you can really score a great deal! I may have missed my morning workout to get these STDs ordered but it was worth it!

Friday, January 14, 2011

"you write that about a hamburger but you got our vows off the internet?"

As soon as Mr.Coastie and I started talking about our wedding and what we wanted one of the few things I knew for sure was that I wanted us to write our own vows. To me exchanging of the vows is one of the most important parts of the wedding, Its the time when we get a chance to say how we feel and commit to each other in our own way. I wanted the words that we say to be our own, I wanted them to be special and unique. So I somehow convinced Mr. Coastie to go along with this ( i secretly think he is excited about it). Ive been writing and rewriting drafts for the last few months and couldn't seem to get them just right. Finally, Last night I wrote the first complete draft of my vows. I'm pretty excited about them. I almost cried when I was reading them back to myself (but mostly just because I'm a sucker for weddings and cry way to easily at just about anything)

Im definitely not going to share them here, you'll have to wait till the big day to hear them. but alot of my heart went into a few lines. As for Mr. Coastie's vows, im both excited and slightly scared, everytime I as him about them he says " i just need to make them funnier..." ha. should be interesting!

P.S. i tried to get a very funny clip of the How I Met Your Mother episode the title quote is from but youtube has let me down.

Monday, January 10, 2011

A Day in the Life

just for fun here's a list of what I learned today:

1. The plural for Iris is Iridies
2. Syphilis makes pupils "like a prostitiute, they always accomodate and never react" (thanks Dr. Heibel)
3. Queen Ann had ugly eye brows
4. Horse Whisperer is a profession not a symptom
5.  The Sea Horse Puzzle in student affairs is REALLY hard to put together
6. 3 cups of Coffee is not a suitable substitute for breakfast and lunch
7. Balancing a suitcase full of books, a mug, a white coat and moes in heels is a bad idea
8. Pandora is the best method for drowning out the Pharm students incessant chattering
9. Melatonin is my best friend

I'd say it was a pretty productive day. Welcome to semester 2 of OMSI. T minus 4 months until its over.

the worst part always follows the best part

The best part about being in a long distance relationship is the times when you get to be together. Inevitably what comes after the best part is the worst part, the times when you have to be apart. For the past 2 weeks I've been lucky enough to have time with Mr. Coastie. But as always, that time always comes to an end and he has to go back to being 7 hours away and I have to go back to being an overwhelmed, no spare time, no fun maniac of a medical student who often feels like her head isn' t even on straight. There is a distinct kind of loneliness that you feel after saying goodbye to the person you love knowing that there will be weeks passing before you get to see each other again. Sometimes its worse than others. This time is worse than others.

If you've never been in a long distance relationship you can't quite understand the sacrifice that is made and the effort and work you have to put in each day to make things work. The way I look at it Mr. Coastie and I will come out a much stronger couple, a couple that knows how to communicate (because after all when all you've got is a phone your forced to learn how to be the best communicators the world has ever seen), a couple that can withstand anything and a couple that will never take our time together for granted.

This is definitely the toughest part of this whole situation, the goodbye's always come and they undoubtedly are always hard, its definitely not a walk in the park but we make it work and we make it work well.  I have to admit I'm a pretty lucky girl to get to marry Mr. Coastie and I'd spend the next 20 years in a long distance relationship with him if that's what I had to do.

Frustrations and Freak Outs

As of tomorrow the officially countdown in 5 months. I just realized how short 5 months is. I know that sounds silly but seriously its like i woke up this morning and was like OMG 5 months, thats not enough time! I'm sure everything that needs to get done will get done, I have faith that I'll make it work after all I work great under pressure.  Despite knowing that I work great under pressure I proceeded to have a day long freak out. part of this may have been attributable to the fact that Mr. Coastie left yesterday, part  of it may have been that school suddenly decided to take over my life again and part of it maybe because I had to set some things out in my schedule up to the end of may. Whatever the reason, tonight my mind was freak out city.

I'm slightly aggravated because In my grand scheme of plans Id wanted to have my Save the Dates out by now, however they haven't even been ordered yet. I wont go into it, but its something that's out of my control and I'm sitting here with idle hands calculating the order/ship/addressing time for the STDs and wondering when its going to get done. which then leads me into thinking that we also need to think about ordering our invitations soon and table arrangements and I don't even have a florist booked yet or the hotels locked in or a million other things that have been running through my mind all day. And to think this all came from staring at a calendar. 

In the midst of things I'm trying to remain calm. I'm trying to remind myself it will come together. I'm also realizing that Juggling school  and the last few months of wedding planning may be harder than I expected. this is when I need a planner, or a servant, either one would do.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

a rainbow of yellow (shoes)

For those of you that know me you know I'm detail oriented and a bit of a perfectionist/control freak. Its okay, you can admit it, because I admit it. So it may come as a surprise that when it comes to my bridesmaids and outfitting for them for the big day I'm doing something a little unorthodox. Mismatching. yep that's right. they wont look all exactly the same and exactly uniform.

I really wanted all my girls to be very comfortable and be able to have fun with their outfits. While I have picked a dress for them (I'm not that adventurous to let them wander out on their own and hope they return with something great, although I'm sure they'll all could, after all they are quite fashionable) , I thought it would be a fun idea to let them pick their own shoes. ( I know, you're sitting there thinking"WOW! that's big? shoes? yipee! in a very sarcastic tone of course)  I came across this photo:
                                                                       source

Instantly I thought what a fun idea it would be for the girls to go out and buy a great pair of yellow heels they would never have a reason to wear anywhere else and they may never wear again but are still completely amazing.

The girls officially  have 5 months to find the cutest yellow shoes that exist to go with their little black dresses and make my mismatch dream come true!

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year everyone! Im excited because I can finally say im getting married THIS year. yep thats right, just about 5 months from now I'll be a Mrs.

I'm proud that its only taken me 4 days to get around to my obligatory New Years Post. thats pretty good if you ask me. I'm not going to talk about resolutions or anything of the sort. I've learned to stop making resolutions because lets be honest nobody follows them anyways, Instead I like to just take a minute to think about what I hope to get out of the new year and what i can improve in my life to make me a better person,friend, student, daughter,fiancee etc.  I think whats most important when thinking about a new year and a so called fresh start is not to forget the one that you've just brought to a close. Its very important  for me at least to learn from my mistakes and while I try not to have regrets and I don't hold grudges I make it a point to remember the things ive done wrong so that I'm sure Ive learned a lesson from them.

2010 was quite the year or me. both good and bad. Obviously some big things happened, I started medical school and got engaged both of which invariably have changed my life (for the good of course) and Im beyond excited to see what 2011 has in store for me I have the best hopes and wishes not only for myself but for my loved ones and I pray that this year turns out to do great things for everyone that I know. I know for myself Im looking forward to growing my education, becoming an amazing man's wife and gaining a whole new family of pretty amazing people. oh and did I mention i turn 25 this year (WOW, at least its on 11/11/11, so i can forget that im old and have fun with the luckiest birthday ever).

The last 2 years of of my life have without a doubt been the most defining. without going into details I can say that who I am has been changed and my strength has been defined more than I thought it would be in just a few years and Im happy to say that who I am today is a product of those changes, trials and triumphs.

I thought it would be fun to take a little trip down memory lane so for your viewing pleasure (or laughing pleasure) here are some pics of new years over the last 3 years from 2 week after graduating college to being halfway thorugh my first year of med school and 5 months away from being married

New Years 2009 (Jacksonville, Fl)

                                  
New  Years 2010 (Kalamazoo, MI)

 

New Years 2011 (Orlando, Fl)