Ahhh.....weekend.

This past week has had me sighing with happiness multiple times. Christian took his last regular block exam of medical school (what the?!) last week. Even though he has his OSCE (his doctoring aka patient exam final) coming up this week, he's in a much better place. Splitting his brain between two studying endeavors (OSCE and Step 1) is much easier than splitting it between three. And after this week, we'll be down to one! Don't get me wrong, it's a whopper of a test, but he's such a hard worker and I know he's excited to get to focus his attention on it.

As for our happy weekend sighs: we were so excited when Christian's dad got in touch on Friday and said he and my mother-in-law were thinking of coming up to visit. Christian's mom is a college student (as well as a busy mom) and his dad owns his own business, so they haven't had a chance to visit us in our new house yet. They came up on Saturday, saw the house, and loved on their grand-doggy. We took them to our favorite Phoenix pizza place, Humble Pie (gourmet 12" pizzas made with local ingredients, SO GREAT). 

Then today we met for lunch at the perfect pre-baseball game joint, Alice Cooper's downtown restaurant Cooperstown. No Alice today - apparently he comes often, we've seen him there once - but it was packed full of Diamondbacks fans. Baseball games are always fun and social, whether the team wins or loses (sorry D-Backs), but I wasn't sure what to expect since they had lost both Friday's and Saturday's games to the Braves...and pretty badly at that. BUT we must've been good luck because we watched the Gerardo Parra hit a grand slam in the second inning and the Diamondbacks went on to win it 6-4. Go team!

I actually got to spend a HUGE chunk of the this weekend with my darling husband and his parents and eating more than one meal with him in a span of three days was just a treat. This is the somewhat sad yet true state of our lives right now. But the past few days have been great. Lots of happy sighing. And lots of exercising. And watching what I eat. As you all know, I've been running and training for the half marathon in November for a month and some change. This is ending week one of accompanying my exercise with a food log and it's been SO helpful. I feel like I'm getting stronger and that's awesome. Things that would have made me incredibly sore or out of breath in the beginning feel easy now. The scale is changing a bit but I'm trying to focus mainly on my fitness goals, which means I feel accomplished and encouraged pretty much every day. And that's awesome. :)

My break from school is wrapping up and I miss it already but I received my clinical placement and am BEYOND excited to get started in the clinic, not to mention an opportunity has presented itself to work as a birth assistant for our local birth center. Hopefully my crazy schedule will allow because there is nothing on this earth like attending a birth. My main OB experience is in postpartum, so I'm super hungry for birth experience. More on my midwifery life on another day. We're off to happy sigh our way to a wonderful and much deserved night's sleep.

PS - Our yard is coming back to life!

It's Friday the 13th.

I don't know how universal this is, but in my experience nurses are superstitious creatures. For example, don't ever step on to a unit (especially as a nursing student...you only make this mistake once) and remark loudly to all staff within earshot how "QUIET it is around here!". They'll all curse at you (out loud or under their breath) for dooming them to an unmanageably busy rest of the day. Which it will be. And it's all your fault! And OB nurses/ED nurses can predict their business by the weather and lunar cycles. Full moon? Look out L&D. Rainy Friday night? Here's to a full and busy night in the emergency department. I, however, have never taken issue with 13 or Friday the 13th. I was number 13 growing up playing soccer and always loved it. And I recall having nothing but pleasant Friday the 13ths (see, now I might be jinxing myself...). Apparently this year there are 3 instances of Friday the 13th, which is the most there can possibly be (and they are, wait for it......13 weeks apart!). 

I know I've been a delinquent blogger (and I refuse to apologize!). To be honest I've been avoiding the computer like the plague. When you go to school online, watch lectures online, study online, take tests online (you get the picture), once the semester ends the computer is the last place you want to be. And it has been incredibly relaxing! I'm not getting as much done as I had hoped - which could be considered the story of my life - but I've been feeling like a regular person and focusing on me again. I got a new gym membership, I've been working on my Couch to 5K running program (week 5 of 8 next week!), taking the doggy to the park to enjoy this amazing pre-meltdown weather, enjoying time with my husband, and reading reading reading. Novels. For funsies. 

The many faces (and sleeping positions) of Viesa.

Running at Gold's in the Cardio Theater!

Near the end of school I had to finish up the Hunger Games series before we went to see the movie. I had read the first book a while back and hadn't got my hands on the last two until my mom picked up the series and slammed through it, lending me book 2 and 3 when she was finished. I enjoyed them a lot and the movie was a cool opportunity to see the characters come to life. I'm thoroughly looking forward to the next one. 

Then, I wanted to finish another of my constantly in-progress books, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. We saw the American movie on my birthday on a whim (I didn't know much about the books). I enjoyed the story so much, I snatched up the e-book then began painstakingly attempting to read it during the semester (a few pages here and there in line at the store or while eating lunch). The minute my last exam was finished, I absolutely devoured the entire Millenium series: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (thank you Jeff for loaning me the real physical copies....sorry people, I like to hold my books and dogear the pages). I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed them. Fantastic crime novels with a little bit of everything. Definitely a dark read, so maybe not for everyone, but I LOVED them. I'm in the process of watching the swedish movies (on Netflix!) and I really hope they make the sequels to the American film (which I loved). 

Now that I no longer have my nose stuck in a book, I'll take the next week or so to get some more things done that I wanted to accomplish while on break. We lost a few nurses at Teen Outreach so I've been sub teaching for another site. In response they are currently looking for a nurse to take on two or three sites as a full-timer and I can't help but sigh because this would've been a dream job had it come along before grad school. They've offered me another site (slash pleaded for me to take it) but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew as I begin my clinical rotations in May. I'm on the hunt for a fantastic OB/public health nurse that loves working with teens/moms/babies to take the spot. Hopefully we'll find someone fabulous (and soon!).

Hope to green up the yards with some beautiful (and low maintenance!) clover.

Christian is, at this moment, cramming in any extra knowledge he can before he takes his very last block exam of medical school. Insert sentimental thought here. I know, it's flying by and we can't even believe it. He has his practical exam in a few weeks (an exam that covers all the physical exam stuff he has learned the first two years of school) and then it's on to full time Step 1 studying. And by full time I mean 8-10 hour days, 6 days a week. It will be a slightly trying May, but he'll take his test on June 7th and all that hard work will pay off. I am SO incredibly proud of him and excited for him to get his hands dirty come July when his clinical rotations begin. It will be such a huge milestone for him!

I'll try to do a better job of keeping everyone updated on what's up with us. Hope you all find yourself happy and healthy and enjoying this RIDICULOUS weather. 71 degrees?? Yes, please. 

Attempting.

Attempting to study for the last exam of the semester. Oh pharmacology...how I hate thee. Next semester = mama/baby classes = happy Ashley.

I've been studying in the basement of the college of medicine with Christian and it's actually been a nice place to study. Quiet, but still with people around, wifi, bathroom, water cooler, ping pong table for study breaks. Oh...and Nerf gun wars (carefully avoiding "assassination" down here). Let me tell you...the future doctors of Arizona are very good shots with the Nerf guns (and exceptional Mario Kart players...the Wii is for study breaks too). It's actually really conducive to progress because when they study hard for shorter periods broken up by fun breaks, everyone seems to get more out of the material.

So much to get done in my little month-long break between semesters (the one and only long-ish break of my program). Plus, DC for clinical prep in May and the ACNM Conference in June (plus Step 1 for Chris...AHHH!). No joke, it will be Christmas before we know it. Not that that would be a terrible thing.

Okay...break over.

XO,
Ash

PS - MAD MEN PREMIER TONIGHT! GET PUMPED. Yes, we're having a party (duh).

Happy Match Day!

Most of you that read this blog know exactly what incredibly exciting "holiday" I'm talking about. It's Match Day 2012, the day for fourth year medical students where the culmination of [almost] four long hard years of work presents itself in one little envelope that contains the direction of your life (and your family's!) for the next 3-7 years. For those of you who don't know, I like this article for a better understanding of Match Day (although it no longer takes place on the third Thursday of March).

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To the partners and families of 4th year medical students, especially the wives whose blogs I've come to love for their offering little glimpses into our future, I hope this day was everything you hoped it would be and that your match fills you with joy and excitement. As far away as this day feels like it is for us, I realize that I'll be taking my second to last "first day of school photo" (you can see the photos from years 1 and 2 here) very shortly. MS3 and clinical rotations start for Christian in June (or July?) and my own clinicals begin in May. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess. 

I got to watch the live stream of Match Day and was so happy to see all the smiles. Because Chris had a class and couldn't listen to the live stream, while I watched I fed all the match results to him and some classmates over Google chat. Because this is only the second matching class of the this particular campus (the first class ever graduated last year), it is exciting to see the high caliber matches being made by students from a program that is still in its beginnings. As excited as I was to watch this year's match, I/we don't really know the fourth year students as well as we do the first and third year students. They were already in their clinical rotations (rarely on campus) by the time Christian started year 1. This means that next year will surely be an incredibly emotional and exciting experience for us as we watch the current third year students match, many of whom have become friends. Not to mention we'll be only one year away. ;)

So Happy Match Day, everyone. And be thankful for the doctors in your life. Their journey is a crazy roller coaster ride and my appreciation for them grows every day of our crazy roller coaster ride. 

"So if you care to find me, look to the western sky!"

Last night I finally got to use my birthday present and went with Christian to see the national tour of Wicked at Gammage Auditorium in Tempe!!!! We got snazzed up, I wore shoes covered in sequins because I can, went to dinner, and headed to the show. This was my first time seeing Wicked and it totally lived up to the hype. We had the greatest time and I can't wait until I'm working so I can afford to go to the theater on a regular basis. Love, love, love, love, love. I know they're coming back to Tucson next year and the show is still running on Broadway. If you get the chance to see it, don't hesitate! We both loved it so much.

Happy Birthday to me! 

Why are you people chasing me?

I still can't believe I signed up (and paid money) to have people chase me down for 13.1 miles (this is assuming I don't end up dead last). What was I thinking? I honestly have no clue, but I am so pumped. A few weeks ago, my good friend Lacey called me up to see if I'd be interested in running the Disneyland half marathon with her. Bottom line, if it involves Disneyland you really don't have to ask me twice (I don't know if I even heard the half marathon part). When we found out the race was sold out already, we started thinking...do we want to run a big race, even if it doesn't involve Mickey Mouse? As I've been trying to find a way to help me reach some fitness/health goals I've been working towards, I started thinking that signing up for something with a buddy might help me stay accountable and keep me motivated. We did some searching on halfmarathons.net (which has comprehensive lists of races by state and month) and decided to combine our fitness goal with a vacation. We settled on a weekend in California for the Malibu International Marathon (and half).

We decided we'll spend a day in Disneyland (so Mickey can still be involved...win win), a day in Malibu mentally preparing (AKA eating/shopping/laying on the beach), and Sunday, Nov. 11th, we'll be running 13.1 miles down the beautiful Malibu coast. Anyone who knows me knows I've never EVER been a runner. I was a competitive soccer player from 4th grade through high school and was quite fit when I graduated. Never super skinny (and never great at running long distances) but fit and strong. Fast forward almost 7 years (oh my God, I can't believe I just typed that), thirty or so odd pounds, a bachelor's degree, and a wedding later, I'm not quite the spry soccer player I used to be. I miss feeling strong. And I miss being outside all the time (my favorite thing about playing soccer). So now I'm on my way back and so far it feels really good. 

My running buddy.

I'm on a running budget (like most of my fellow grad school folk), so when it came to gear I decided to stick to the basics. My ankles pronate quite a bit and I need a really supportive running shoes, so I was extremely pleased to find a great pair on sale at a local running shop. I also hit up Marshall's for some running headphones (ear buds + running = no good for me), a new sports bra, and a running tee.

I've seen some hilarious Nike running tees online and these are the ones I found at Marshall's (last one I found online). I think I really might have to purchase this last one. 

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At this point I'm working up to running ~3 miles straight (around 30 minutes of running), which is pretty baseline for half marathon training. Once I achieve this (hopefully by April), I'll dive into adding milage onto a few runs a week. I'm part way through this book and I'm loving it. This sounds corny, but I really am starting to think I can do it. :)

My kind of thinking...

I'm really looking forward to this journey and I'm starting to feel a change already. At the end of each run I feel a little stronger than I did before. And we have enough time that I don't feel too rushed. As they say, slow and steady wins the race. 

Send me your good workout vibes (or if you've done this before, your advice)!

XO,

Ash

This past few weeks I:

Studied a ton (and passed that stupid pharm test). Alongside my study partner (who also passed his stupid test!). This time we studied at Chris' school and it always makes me realize how much I miss having a physical school to go to for studying, classes, and dare I say, exams. You know you're in med school when this is your work station:

And yes, those are both his. Something Christian [usually] does well is balancing hard and serious studying with moments of crazy fun/procrastination. And it's actually quite effective. Tonight it was our impromptu ping pong game, then Mario Kart with the other boys studying with us. You can see Jeff in the background, possibly winning.

Medical students are serious about playing. Frankly, there's a level of seriousness to everything they do. And that includes ping pong. There's a table in the basement and every year they have the mother of all ping pong tournaments. This year's tourney is a few rounds in and Christian is still alive! Way to go, honey!

When we played our little impromptu game he was impressed at how much better I've become since he started medical school. I'm glad that I too have gained a new skill in medical school.

Also, there has been: house cleaning for movie night (involving lots of Glee over the big speakers), Viesa snuggling (because that always happens around here), and me doing something totally crazy.

I SIGNED UP FOR A HALF MARATHON! WHAT THE ....... ?! (I know. That's what I said.)

 

I better get training for that, huh? I'll do a full post on more specific plans in the near future (when the shock wears off). Until then, send me good running juju. I'm gonna need it.

Love,
Ash, Chris, & Viesa