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.