Busy Bees

So it has been forever since I've posted anything, sorry about that. Life has been busy, busy, busy!

Sam finished his first semester at MCG with STRAIGHT A's!!! I was pretty darn impressed myself, I secretly wanted to call all the schools who passed him by and let them know just what they had missed out on! But, I resisted. Instead, Sam and I celebrated with a night out to one of our favorite, favorite restaurants: Chops. For the past several years, my mom's husband has given Sam and I a fabulous gift at Christmas: a gift card to Buckhead Life Restaurant Group. The card allows you to eat at many different restaurants in Atl and the great part is you get 20% more at Christmas or when you reload an old card. Pretty sweet deal! Sam and I have been to Chops every time because it is simply fabulous! They have the most delicious flash fried lobster tail.... yum! And the steaks are incredible!

Other than that we've been busy with the following:

1- Sam had a weak off (= me JEALOUS!!!) He spent his time between semesters relaxing, playing video games, and getting in a round of golf. Now it's back to school for what is said to be the toughest semester of all.

2- Sam's long-time friend Jack Jackson came to visit making him our first official non-parental house guest!

3-Puppy Training classes with Sterling. In case you missed it, Sam and I bought a Weimaraner puppy about 8 weeks ago. He is 16 WEEKS today and growing like a weed. If you've ever thought about this breed, here is a great quiz. It pretty much sums up life with Sterling for the past 8 weeks! http://www.weimrescue.org/quiz/ The whole bit about carrying water in their mouth... so true! I read it and thought, "how bad can it be? it's just a little water" Well, I'm here to tell you that we've flooded the floor a couple of times with his giant bowl of water... he steps in it, slips into it, flips it... Not to mention, you'd think he was training for some kind of Olympic game... the "carry water in your mouth the farthest event". He makes it all the way to the other end of the house, leaking a little all the way, before he releases it all and then proceeds to play in the awesome puddle he created! Despite it all, he's pretty phenomenal and puppy training has been going fairly well. He can sit, lay down, stay (when he wants to), leave it, and we are working on "bang" (play dead). He loves his daddy like crazy, and every time he makes we want to scream at the top of my lungs, he looks at me with his big ol' eyes like "sorry mom, forgive me?", and you can't not forgive the little boy.

4- We've booked a cruise! This may be one of the craziest things we've done, but it was just the perfect opportunity that will probably never work out so smoothly again. Our one year anniversary just happens to be the weekend before the Masters, and here in Augusta, pretty much all schools have spring break the week of the Masters (I guess so locals can flee the insanity if they so choose). So Sam is off and I'll have worked for 6 months meaning I will have accrued enough paid time off to take the whole week off!!! We are going about it as cheaply as we possibly can, as we figure we've never been on a cruise at all, so we'll probably think it's wonderful no matter what. And we have years and years to upgrade the vacation status later! Plus, as we booked so early, we are paying less per day than a hotel room in Savannah would cost us... pretty sweet deal! It will be a wonderful way to relax and splurge a little on ourselves as we celebrate our first year as husband and wife!

5- I was ROBBED!!! Yep, on Friday night someone broke into my car, smashed the window, and stole my purse out of the back seat. I will admit that I was an idiot to leave the purse in there, but I felt that I was in a safe place (the vet) and as it was an emergency, I quickly jumped out, locked my door and ran in. Here is how it all unfolded:

On friday night Sam and I were playing cards with some of our friends, Matt and Emily. Emily happened to notice something weird with Sterling's eyes. One had constricted and the other dilated. We waited a few to see if they would return to normal and then, as our vet is open 24 hours, I called to see if I should be concerned. They said to bring him in immediately as it could be a sign of a neurological condition. I raced out and Sam stayed to keep Matt and Emily company until I could return. I was there for a total of 21 minutes. In that time Sterling saw the vet, I called Sam to inform him I needed to stay for another 10-15, we walked around outside (in front of my car I might add), Sterling saw the vet again, and we left... or tried to. We got into the car and Sterling immediately chomped down on GLASS!!! What the heck! It took me a minute to realize what had happened, but it was all gone, credit cards, debit card, license, check book. I guess my one happy thought in all of this has been that whomever it was, they chose the wrong person... They stole about a 6 year old purse that probably cost about $60 back then, a wallet that had already been partially chewed on, and about 6 cents.

All of this has kept us pretty busy for the past several weeks, but we are looking forward to a long weekend and the kickoff to the Georgia football season. My momma is coming down to stay for the weekend, so look for a new post soon!

Lucky Lady

Believe it or not, it has been 100 days since Sam and I got married! Time continues to fly: we've moved to a new city, started school, started a new job, bought a puppy... I can't imagine what we will have seen and done in a year!

These 100 days have shown me that I am truly blessed. Sam is my best friend and he understands me far more than I often give him credit for. In our premarital counseling, Mike said something that has turned out to be so true... one of the best things Sam can do for me is protect me from myself. Sam has really shown that to me. Over the past five years he has learned my tendencies and knows how best to protect me from the unhealthy decisions I often make. I have truly found a partner to walk through life and that is something to cherish!

Not only am I blessed to have an awesome husband that loves me and takes care of me, but I'm a lucky lady because my husband is pretty darn cool! I'll take this opportunity to brag!

Firstly, if Physical Therapy were to ever not work out, Sam is an excellent brick layer! Haha! Let me explain: Our house is fairly old and I guess one of it's semi-adorable idiosyncrasies is that it has "flower beds" all around the perimeter of the house. The problem with this cute idea is that our house is surrounded my some of the tallest pine trees in the world and our house gets about an hour of direct sunlight on two sides. The second problem is that we have really long overhangings, so not only were the beds receiving zero light, but they also received no water. At some point, someone planted several azaleas, which were understandably sad and pathetic; picture those small, twisted trees from the desert. So one weekend Sam and I decided to transplant them and see if we could save them. The result left a bed of weeds and bugs, neither of which did I want to keep. So Sam decided to match what was already an odd theme around the house and fill it in with bricks. I doubted this project, but I've learned to leave him to it, because he won't stop until he is satisfied. He scouted the whole yard and uncovered a few dozen bricks. He copied the patterns in the other beds, and in the end we have a neat bed of bricks! : ) But truly, it's much better than before, and Sam discovered a new talent!

Another possibility for Sam if PT ever falls through would be the pizza business. Honestly, he is AMAZING! Everyone who tastes his pizza says that it's fantastic. When we were back home, my mom would always ask if Sam was coming over because she wanted homemade pizza for dinner. It is delicious! And the best part: he makes half for me exactly how I like it!

Now you may be thinking that Sam's Physical Therapy dreams are dim as I find all these other opportunities for him. Thankfully, that is far from the truth! Sam will not need his brick laying skills nor his pizza making abilities any time soon. Despite the difficulties he experienced getting into PT school, Sam is doing AWESOME in the MCG PT program! He's completed one course, Human Anatomy, with an A!!! And he even made the highest grade in the class on a Research test! Pretty sweet!

So in culmination, I am one lucky lady! 100 days have been a dream come true, and I'm looking forward to hundreds and hundreds more!

Wild 4th of July Weekend

What a weekend! I know I'm a little slow in getting the details up of our wacky July 4th, but I've been so busy (you'll understand why shortly).

Luckily Sam's program gave all the PT's an extra long holiday: he had a test on Wednesday but he didn't have to be back on till today, the next Thursday. Sam and I had been planning on spending the whole week home visiting family; however, I recently acquired a full time job, so my trip was cut short. Last Thursday Sam left for home and I was to follow suit Friday after I got home from work. And this is where the trouble begins. I had previously contacted the vet about getting a mild sedative for our cat Everest.

She really hates car rides, and it's a very unpleasant trip to make alone. The vet prescribed a little pill... Everest hates pills. I came home from work in a desperate hurry to get on the road. I scooped Everest up and grabbed the ominous pill. She fought immediately, twisting and scratching. It's nearly impossible to get her to swallow a pill, she bites you, and unless you really get it down her throat, she just spits it back out. But on I fought. She bit the pill in half at one point, and I was fairly sure that she swallowed one piece, so I just had to get half the pill down, and we could get on the road. All in all, it was about a 15 minute process. Thinking at the very least the pill had dissolved in her mouth, I jumped off the bed with my bleeding finger to bandage myself and call Sam. While on the phone with him, I saw my baby jump off the bed... she fell. Now my sweet Everest isn't the most graceful cat in the world, but she doesn't just fall over. I watched her stand up, but could see that she was really wobbly. I told Sam that I thought something was wrong and I wanted to call the vet. By the time I hung up with him and called the vet (thank God for 24 hour vets) my baby had completely lost mobility in her legs! She was just lying on the floor trying to pull herself towards me with her front paws, but she couldn't stand at all. I told the receptionist what had happened and she set to come in immediately. Of course I'm already thinking that I might not make it, and she may die! Ughhh! It was awful! She was practically paralyzed! I ended up staying at the vet for about an hour where they ran tests and monitored her. In the end they decided that she had an "adverse reaction" to the sedative, but that it would wear off over the next 10-12 hours!!! Well I was a mess, so my momma and Sam decided that they would drive to Augusta to come stay with me that night because I was so afraid of what might happen. I took my baby home and watched her detox for the next 3 hours. By the time Sam and momma got to Augusta, she was able to walk, but was very wobbly and fell over every few steps. It was one of the scariest nights ever! Thankfully by the next morning she was almost fully recovered! Obviously, I decided that there would be no pill for this trip home and we all set out for Gainesville for the official start of my long weekend!

Before the aforementioned insanity, Sam had gotten to Gainesville on Thursday, and he had gone into his old work at ProTherapy to visit with friends. While there he learned that one of his coworkers had a litter of Weimaraner puppies for sale. Sam sent me a picture... too cute! I knew Sam had really wanted a dog for a long time, so we added plans to go look at the puppies to our weekend. We spent a good part of Saturday at Sam's house laying out by the pool and enjoying the cooler weather! That evening, my mom and Stuart came over to enjoy dinner with Sam's family and we had a great time! Sunday we made plans to see the puppies. Sam and I had already talked and decided that if Sam really wanted one, that now was as good of time as any, and we have a great place. So obviously... we ended up with a puppy by the end of the day. We made plans for Sam to pick up our little boy on Tuesday when he came home.

I headed out Monday afternoon with Everest in tow to get the house ready for our new addition. Sam worked at ProTherapy Tuesday to make some extra money and then picked up our little puppy after work and headed home to me! By 10 o'clock our entire family was under one roof for the first time! Meet Sterling: He was 8 weeks old on Tuesday, and he loves his daddy to death! He's not so sure about his sister yet, as she regularly smacks him in the nose, but we are definitely one happy family.

In addition to our little puppy, our families were incredibly generous to us while we were home. My momma worked on a beautiful dried flower arrangement for our dining room. She has a great eye for this, and I always love what she comes up with. Dried flowers are kind of pricey, but the look so much nicer than silk. It turned out great! I probably need to trim some of the grass, but it looks beautiful and added a great deal of color to our dull little dining room corner.

Sam's momma was also very thoughtful! She knows how much Sam loves to grill and decided to get us an early birthday present. Sam grilled yummy hamburgers last night and is currently working on pork chops tonight. He loves it! I am pretty thrilled myself because on top of having a happy husband and tasty dinner, there are less dishes!!! Thanks Genie!

As you can see we had a fun-filled weekend that started out full of insanity and ended the same way! Now we just have to argue over who gets up in the middle of the night! But we couldn't be happier to have everyone healthy and back under one roof!

A Grown-Up Bed

Yay!!! Sam and I received our new california king Pottery Barn bed today, courtesy of my momma! We've been sleeping with the mattress on the floor since we moved, which kind of felt like camping. We are so excited to have this new addition! I love it! The whole thing: the bed, the mattress, the sheets, the duvet cover! It's perfect! We're slowly adding on the extra's like throw pillows, quilts, etc. But it's pretty amazing as is!

Special thanks to momma for the amazing wedding gift, my uncle and aunt, who gave us the mattress, and everyone else who gave us sheets, pillows, duvet, etc. We love how it all come together!

Long Weekend in the Jungle

Most people think of Memorial Day weekend as the unofficial start of summer and the first opportunity to head to the beach or spend the day on the lake. This year, for Sam and I, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself and use my dear, sweet Momma, and all of her landscaping talents and overhaul our new yard.

As newlywed's and first home renters, a yard is a new and exciting thing for us... but this one was a little daunting. Momma came down Friday night to spend the weekend with us, and when I woke up Saturday morning, she was already tackling what I thought was an overgrown tree. Boy was I wrong!...

As you can see this monstrosity was taking over a fence that was hiding under the depths of its shady foliage, but what appeared to be a tree in bad need of some grooming was actually a VINE!!! Who in their right mind would plant such a thing, I'll never know. After hours of cutting, ripping, and ultimately wrestling with these thorny vines, we conquered (sort of)! Mom wanted to simply chop it down, but I convinced her that as we are renting, we probably shouldn't destroy the property. Here is an after shot of the much needed hair cut!

And with that we were off to a long weekend of learning all about our jungle of a yard and slowly taming this new responsibility of adulthood. The first thing I learned: landscaping is a fortune, literally. Grass alone can make you cringe at the checkout! And who knew there were so many types of fertilizer! Thankfully, we have a very small back yard, but it was really overgrown. This property is over 50 years old, and I believe that pretty much everything is original. All of the bushes and trees are HUGE and they haven't been maintained in quite sometime. Which leads me to the second lesson I learned: it's much easier to maintain a yard in good shape than one that has run amuck! But in the end with a lot of help from Mom, we have a neat little yard. Now we just have to wait for the grass to grow!

Here is a shot of one of the Camellia in the back yard that Mom trimmed back in to shape (they looked like giant balls before). And as you can see they are huge!!!

We also planted three Hydrangea (my favorite). Two are the traditional ones that are blue or pink depending on your soil's pH, but one I just couldn't pass up is called Peppermint. It's petals are variegated pink and white to look like, well a peppermint!

We also spruced up the front of the yard with some new hanging baskets and planters filled with Impatiens since pretty much our whole yard is shady! Here's a before and after of the front of the house.

By the end of the weekend we were all pretty tired, but I have to admit that I'm pretty pleased with the results. It wasn't a lot, but it certainly made the view from the kitchen window much more pleasant and it made our house feel a little bit more like home.

So, a blog huh?

I guess I am officially joining the crowd and becoming a member of the blogging community. It’s another one of those things, that I swore I’d never do, because I mean, “who reads those things?”. To answer it, I do, so I might as well join my voice with everyone else. Now is as good of time as any.

In fact, now may be one of the more popular times to start a blog, as I’m in the “newlywed phase”. Based on so many of my friends who have married before me, it seems like a blog is the thing to do for the newly married. Why? I don’t know, probably for several reasons. Firstly, it probably has something to do with the feeling of severed ties. You are a unit now, not an individual, and in some ways it feels kind of isolating, contrary to what it might seem. Secondly, so that family (read this as moms) can keep track of you and your family without feeling nosy. Thirdly, it probably has something to do with social networking. So many of my friends (and myself) got married before careers and everything were completely set in stone, so there is also the aspect of starting real life, and some contacts sure won’t hurt.

I guess I fall into all three of these categories. I could certainly use any networking available, I’m sure our moms will be the major followers of this blog, but the main force driving me is the feeling of isolation. I have no idea exactly how writing to no one in particular solves that, but putting pen to paper (figuratively) has always helped me order my thoughts, and maybe the idea that someone could read it removes some of the isolation.

Not only am I a very recent newlywed (just over 6 weeks), but I’m also a resident of a new city where I know one person… my husband. Talk about feelings of isolation! And to top it off, I’ve knowingly chosen a life that I swore I would never have--I am the wife of a medical student. I am surprisingly pleased with this status and so very proud of my husband, but it is not the path I thought I'd be on 5 years ago. Why is that so taboo to me? Well, I grew up to my mom’s horror stories of doing exactly what I’ve just done… marrying my dad and leaving everything she knew to go with him when he got into dental school in Louisville, KY. She didn’t know a soul, she had no job, a son to take care of, and a husband who spent 20 hours a day at school slicing open cadavers or at home in silence studying. Thankfully there are some differences between my mom’s story and mine: The Lord was good to me and only sent me 2.5 hours away from my family instead of 9, I don’t have a young son to care for, just a 1 year old cat (Everest), and I seriously doubt that my husband will spend 20 hours a day studying. As he explains it to me, he would either go crazy or his head will explode!

Despite these distinct differences, I am coming to realize that the next three years are full of unknowns, and I HATE unknowns. I like lists, I like order, I like to know exactly what steps get me where I want to go, and I like to be in control. However, I think God has a different plan. I have decided to trust, which is something that I am very bad at, but I am going to trust Him, that His reasons and His plans are infinitely better than the ones I would have come up with. I’ve decided to trust that God fully comprehends our financial situation, and that He will provide; that He hears and understands my loneliness, but that He is using this time to draw me closer to my husband, and ultimately to Him; and that He has the timeline of my years planned for me, so I can stop with all the worry.

So here’s to believing that I have not been abandoned no matter how alone I may feel, and trusting that the next chapter of my life is being written by the ultimate Author.