Burritos, Deer, and Bears, Oh My!

I GOT TO SEE MY HUSBAND THIS WEEKEND!

Yes friends, Stuart flew in all the way from Pascagoula, Mississippi to spend the weekend with me and meet my newly acquired UVA friends.  I couldn't have been more ecstatic!

Stu didn't get here until Saturday, so to pass some time on Friday night I went out with some new intern friends!  There is a high likelihood that you'll hear me rant and rave about how awesome this town is in many blogs to come.  One of the reasons for that is that every Friday night from April to October, the downtown (which is already traffic-free and pedestrian-only) is used for FREE CONCERTS!  Yes.  Free.  There are food trucks scattered about and literally thousands of people just hang out at the amphitheater at the end of downtown and listen to local artists play really good music.  This was all the idea of a certain Mr Dave Matthews who hails from C'ville and thought that music was pretty important to the town!

Sorry, I realize this is really too small to see.  These are some of my new intern friends!

I'm so thankful I've already made a group of friends in my intern class!  I anticipate many more Friday after Five events!

Stuart flew into Richmond at noon on Saturday.  If you know me well enough, you would likely (correctly) guess that I had planned out every detail of the weekend to maximize our fun times together!  We started off with paving the way to Stuart's heart with a huge Chipotle burrito.  As a wife, you always strive to please your husband.  I'm just so thankful that mine is easy to please!

"Mmmmm ... meat and tortilla"

After Stuart was satisfied we drove in to Charlottesville to tour our new apartment!!!  Since there's still construction going on, we had to sign waivers and wear hard hats.  Pretty exciting stuff if you ask me!  The complex is close to being finished and our actual apartment is done!  We're just waiting on landscaping and paving of the driveway.  That's slated to be finished on July 15th!  Depending on my work schedule (more on that later), we'll either move in that weekend or the next.

Please note how freakishly small my head is.

While touring the new place, Stu and I realized "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".  Going from 1680 square feet to 1085 square feet may not look like a lot on paper ... but it sure is a lot in person!  When it comes down to it, we really don't need that much space anyway.  It'll just be a fun challenge to figure out how to fit in our furniture! I'll post pictures when we're actually in.  I don't want to jinx anything - ha!

After getting excited over the proximity of parks, churches, shopping, and deer to our apartment, we headed 15 minutes across town to a place called Carter Mountain.  This orchard and vineyard is perched atop a mountain right next to historic Monticello.  They grow peaches, apples, cherries, and grapes seasonally, and let the locals come pick to their hearts' content!  Stu and I went with the intention of picking enough ripe peaches to make a cobbler for dessert the next night.  Turns out all the ripe ones had already been picked; instead, we ate a ripe one in the orchard, bought a few for ripening at home, and bought a doughnut in the bakery shop. We ate our delicious treat while overlooking the city of Charlottesville.

Road to the apple orchards.  Yes, Virginia is a beautiful state.

My favorite fuzzy fruit

Stuart hunting super hard for a ripe one!

Devouring the only one we found.  Not to worry.  I gave Stu a bite, too.

Peach donuts and peach cider?  Yes, please!

View of C'ville over the donut

After our produce-picking and view-enjoying, we headed downtown to meet a new couple-friend for dinner.  There's a guy named Sam in my intern class, who just so happens to be from Mississippi and know one of mine and Stuart's good friends!  So over burgers we played the "do you know so-and-so" game with Sam and his fiance.  Again - I can NOT say how happy I am to have the intern class that I do!  So many great people are starting out on this journey with me!

Sunday we woke up and headed out to one of the churches close to our new apartment.  We really liked the church but want to visit several more before we decide on one.  Fortunately for us, this church had an early service, so afterwards we packed a picnic and headed out to the GORGEOUS Shenandoah Valley National Park.  There's a road that runs through the middle of the park called Skyline Drive.  You can drive that road over 100 miles until you reach the end.  All along the drive are overlooks and short day-hikes.  You have to pay to get in, but $30 gets you a years-worth of access.  Not bad!

Moorman's River Overlook

Stu being king of the world

About 15 miles into the drive, we decided to pull off and eat our picnic.  Well what did we see as soon as we pulled off the road but a deer!!  She was literally standing in the middle of the little road we drove to get to the picnic tables.  I was able to snap a picture just as she walked into the woods.  Beautiful!  And on a related note, I guess people up here aren't big into hunting, because there are deer EVERYWHERE!  Like, walking through my apartment complex. I am not kidding.

Then, as we parked the car, we came up on another nature surprise:  A BLACK BEAR!!!  It was a cute little baby one and I was so excited!  Of course where there's a baby bear, there's a momma bear not far behind.  So we walked the other way.  Maybe if you look really hard you can see a black spot in the trees.  I promise it's there!

Picnic lunch, compliments of Kroger

After filling our bellies we headed out on a 3.5 mile hike to Jones Run Falls.  I have to be honest, I was pretty excited to (1) get out in nature without having a heat stroke, and (2) wear my awesome Scarpa hiking boots I haven't worn since the Inca Trail.  We so enjoyed the scenery, and while we didn't see any more wildlife, we had some great conversations and were rewarded by a lovely waterfall after our hard work!

I'd like to impress you and say our hike was on the App Trail, but alas we just crossed it once.  Maybe next time!

Stu's such a gentleman.  Held up that rock for me as I passed under!

Signposts on the trails

Bad lighting, but pretty 42' falls!

And some VA scenery for you

We were basically pooped after our hike.  Let's just say these deep-South folks aren't used to hills!  But we mustered enough strength to cook dinner!  It's been ... literally months since I have cooked a real dinner.  That makes me so sad.  But armed with just 1 skillet and a few pots and pans, I cooked a balsamic and garlic crusted pork tenderloin with roasted Brussels Sprouts in my temporary kitchen!  Since we didn't have the peach cobbler to make, we headed out to the local Ben and Jerry's parlor for a few scoops.  Definitely don't mind having one of those in town!

Whew!  It was an action packed weekend for sure!  I am so thankful that my sweet husband safely made the trip up and now back to Pascagoula.  I was so sad to see him go this morning, but know he'll be back soon! And I'm so glad for the memories we made exploring our new town!

Patients and Sponges

Today I sat through ten hours of UVA Graduate Medical Education Orientation.  Basically that means I sat in an auditorium while lots of people talked at me and the 200 other incoming interns about rules and regulations to follow during the next 3 years.  But we also got some motivating speeches too!  From that exhausting 10 hours, these were the two main points I was left with:

Patients sacrifice of themselves for my education.  This was stated by the CEO of the UVA Health Systems in a very inspiring speech on how UVA is one of, if not the, best hospitals in the country (though I'm sure he's biased a bit) and how they picked us to work here and we should feel very special, yada yada.  He mentioned how most our patients come from the Commonwealth of Virginia and West Virginia, which are mostly rural states.  The amount of people that walk through the doors at UVA in any given day is more than the amount of people that live in their city.  They come to our huge hospital sick and scared, because their doctors can't diagnose or treat their illnesses.  They then have nurses and staff tell them when to wake up, sleep, and eat; people take their blood and other bodily fluids; residents poke and prod them in other personal places.  Yet they do all this willingly, because they know this is a teaching hospital and because they are here they will get the best care possible.  And because this is a teaching hospital, the primary goal (aside from treating patients), is to teach future doctors.  To teach me.  That's a pretty humbling thought.  And a good one to keep in mind as I know I will be stressed and tired when I enter those patients' rooms; I always should be mindful of what they've gone through so they can teach me.

Be a paranoid sponge.  This was stated by a trauma surgeon who also happens to be the head honcho over patient safety.  He had a (pretty frightening) talk on how accidents happen in the hospital ... because people get cocky, or tired, etc.  He basically said our first year, he doesn't expect us to be experts or to diagnose rare diseases on our own ... he expects us to be paranoid sponges.  To be nervous to the point that we're afraid of our own shadows so that we make as few mistakes as possible, and when we make mistakes (which will happen), we learn everything we can from them.  I think I will have no problem with the paranoid part, and hopefully the sponge part won't be too bad, either!

More orientation over the next few days ... Stu is coming in town for the weekend ... and soon I will post on my favorite things about Virginia!

I'm Here!

After a few weeks and 2,800 miles on my Prius, I arrived safely in Charlottesville, Virginia on Monday afternoon.  Over the past couple of weeks as Stuart and I transitioned out of our house in Daphne, I was able to visit with his family, my family, and some of my very best friends.  The Prius and I traveled from Gadsden all the way to San Antonio and back!  More posts and pictures to come on that eventually.

I can't remember if I posted about this or not, but our apartment/condo we planned on leasing isn't quite ready yet.  So I am "in-between" in a furnished apartment a few miles down the road.  It was kind of nice to "move-in" with just my clothes and some pots and pans.  It definitely was a quick move!  But of course it's weird to be living in a place where the furniture isn't mine.  We're keeping our fingers crossed that the new place will be finished sometime between July 5-15.  The sooner the better!  I'm so ready to feel settled in!  Not having Stuart here with me is hard enough, so it will be nice to have some semblance of normalcy when I'm living in my own place with my own stuff!

In other news, work starts tomorrow!  Not real work, mind you, but 1.5 weeks of orientation.  BUT tomorrow will be the first day I get PAID for being a DOCTOR!  Whoop whoop!  I'll be learning the ins-and-outs of the UVA Health System, as well as legal things about being a resident.  Then the real fun starts on Monday June 23rd as I begin my first "real work" in a private clinic in town!  I have mixed emotions about my schedule ... I start out with an easy first few months, and then get absolutely slammed at the end.  On the positive side, it will be a nice transition in.  On the negative side, come next June I will be very tired!

Please be praying for me and Stu during this new phase in our lives.  We are hoping to be living together real soon, and hoping even more so for a job that will allow Stuart to move up here!  Pray for me to be a strong independent woman during this stressful time, but also to be a loving wife while I'm away from my husband!

More updates to come soon ... Thanks for reading =)