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 =)

The In-Between

Boxing up our house and preparing for the move really began over a month ago with a class-wide yard sale. Some friends and I organized a yard sale for our graduating class and held it at a local church parking lot.  While Stu was working (and I was "working" on rather light rotations), I went through the house purging stuff that we originally should have gotten rid of when we got married.  Alongside those random items, we even dared to sell some furniture we didn't want to move, and both our televisions!*  All this purging and selling really didn't make a dent in our 1680 square feet, though.

The prius - loaded up with, well, junk

My expert packing/shoving into every nook and cranny

We had a huge turnout thanks to Craigslist and the newspaper!  Everyone did really well ... Stu and I brought home about $150!

A couple of weeks later, our property manager called to let us know we got a renter!  As I eluded to in a recent post he unfortunately wanted to move in well before we wanted to move out!  Not feeling in a good place to negotiate, we agreed.  Conveniently our parents came down the weekend of Honors Convocation/Graduation, so we put them to work!  Bless their hearts, I don't think we could have worked more activities into a weekend.  We had Honors, boxed up the kitchen, had graduation, boxed up the guest room, had a graduation dinner, took a trip to Stu's grandmother's house in Prentiss where we're storing all our stuff, then celebrated Mothers' Day and did some more packing!  Whew!  Glad our families are flexible and want to help us out!  They are a blessing and we couldn't have done it without them!

Stu and Mr Johnny boxing up some stuff.  Those liquor store boxes sure do the trick!

3 trucks, 1 trailer, and a Prius convoyed 3 hours to Prentiss, MS to store our home

After our families left we definitely had made a ton of progress, but still had a long way to go.  Not to mention I also had to deep clean our house before our renter moved in.  Stuart has been working really hard to build up some vacation days, and so I have spent the majority of my hours scrubbing baseboards, cleaning windows, taking Goodwill trips, and boxing up all the leftovers.  FINALLY, weeks later, our house is looking really empty.  Winston and Mardi really don't know what to do with themselves.  I think they're both a bit nervous that they won't get to go where all our furniture is going.  They don't want to be left behind!

Winston, curled up on the lid of Mardi's cat carrier (out for her to get used to seeing it)

They've worked hard too

Now, that's exhausting enough.  But here comes the real crazy part:

The original plan was for me to move to C'ville on June 8th.  Stuart and both our parents would come to help, then Stuart would come back to stay with family in Pascagoula and continue working for Chevron until a job overseas or in the C'ville area worked out.

Well, yesterday, I got a phone call from the condo in C'ville.  Apparently construction, which was scheduled to be done around June 1st, is basically finished.  However, there is some inspection problem with the wiring!  Because of this, I now have a tentative move-in date of MID-JULY!  That's a month after I start work!  Hopefully I'll get a call today saying they can move me into an "in-between" furnished apartment at another location until all the bugs get worked out at our new place.  I'll start work while living there with just the bare minimum of my stuff.  Then when the new place is ready, we'll have Stu and the families come up to move the rest.

Pray with me that Stuart can find a job by mid-July and that he can move along with the furniture!

As of Friday, we will be out of our Bay House in Daphne, and on to new adventures.  Stu will still be working overtime in Pascagoula, and I'm going to try to take some time to travel and see family and one of my best friends out in Texas.  We're going to have to get creative about places to stay during this "homeless" period in our lives!  The last few months have been emotionally overwhelming with both joy, sadness, excitement and worry.  But we are making it through with God's help!  While all this is exhausting and confusing, He still has the greater plan in mind.  Please be praying for us during this transition time.  I will post as much as I can to keep you updated on the house situation, and Stuart's job situation, as well as the FUN things we do in the meantime!

Love you all!

* Not having television has really been a blessing!  It forces me to stay productive all day, and when Stuart comes home from work we interact rather than vegging out in front of the tube.  I think losing the TV may be a permanent decision!

DIY semi-success

While cleaning out our house, Stuart and I came across this old box that he and his Dad made together during his fraternity days.  Being that some of the sides weren't even, and it didn't sit flat on the ground, and it looked like it was from Italy, we almost decided to throw it out.  Until, that is, we channeled our inner HGTV stars and decided to turn it into something spectacular: an ottoman!

Here's the box.  This was mid-destruction as Stu was trying to rip apart everything but the skeleton frame.

I left all the sawing and hammering to Stuart.  Well, I did do some hammering.  I also had a few bruised fingers to show for it.  As the box was being made, I pondered over how I wanted the lid to look.  I finally decided on a cushion using our leftover curtain fabric.  Then I realized ... I have no idea how to upholster.  Well - it turns out to be pretty simple!

I'm not sure if I did it exactly the way you're "supposed to", but the fabric stayed tight!  I placed a foam cushion on the board (with a little wood glue for extra stick-to-it-ness), then stretched the fabric tight over it and hammered in lots and lots of little steel tacks on the underside.

Tacks in progress

 That turned out to be kind of plain and not sturdy enough, so then I added some shiny bronze-colored decorative tacks on the outside.  These are pretty and also feel really fun when you run your hand over them.  Again, however, sore fingers from all that hammering.  And probably upset neighbors, too ...

The pretty tacks

I finished the cushion about the same time Stu finished the frame, and then we painted the base dark brown to match the fabric.  We put casters on the legs to give it a nice roll.  Then we had to figure out how to hinge the lid and base together.  You'd think that between an engineer and a doctor that would have been easy, but I regret to inform you otherwise.

With lots of hours spent, and several trips to Lowes later, we were finally finished.  And I have to say, we were pretty dang proud of ourselves.

We stood back from our work, gave a few high fives (really, we did), and rolled that baby upstairs.

Then we got it next to the couch and realized ...

It's WAY too tall to be an ottoman!  AGGGHHHH!!  That's what we get for not measuring it to begin with I guess.  We've rolled it around our house elsewhere and decided it could be a useful end-of-the-bed bench/storage, or perhaps something for a future mudroom.

Regardless, we're pretty proud of our woodworking and upholstering skills, however rudimentary!

Honors Convocation and Graduation

Last Friday was Honors Convocation ... the event that kicked off graduation weekend!  This is a really special time where my classmates and I received our doctoral hoods.  The hood is a part of the academic graduation regalia that signifies a student has done the required coursework to earn a doctoral level degree.  The outside of the hood is the color of the degree (green for medicine) and the inside of the hood stands for your institution (red, white and blue for South).Aside from that, Honors Convocation is a time for students to honor their favorite faculty, as well as for faculty to honor certain students.  We also hear a few words from a faculty and student speaker, and last but definitely not least, take the Hippocratic Oath!

With all the craziness going on around the Saulters' soon-to-be-vacant household, I had let this special weekend sneak up on me a bit.  It was a little surreal when I put on my cap and gown and marched down the aisle with my classmates to Pomp and Circumstance.

Who doesn't love wearing green velvet?!   

Teeny, but this is me presenting an award to our Dean of Student Affairs, Dr O'Brien

After the speakers and presentation of awards, it was time for the hooding!  Each of us walked across stage with a family member, friend, or faculty member who was to hood us.  I chose having Dad to place my hood.  The "hooder" stands behind the "hooded" student and drapes this crazy long velvet thing over your neck.  It weighs about 5 pounds and you feel like you're being choked the rest of the night!  But it really is a special moment.  I got a bit teary right before we did it.

Getting hooding instructions

After the ceremony was over, we got a chance to mix and mingle with a few people.  Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of pictures, and a lot of the faculty I wanted to chat with weren't able to come!  But here are a few ...

Me and Stu ... one of the reasons I stayed sane through medical school!  I'm clutching our med school coozy present, as well as a few honors I was blessed to receive.

Me with Dr Pettyjohn: Emergency physician and veteran (when age 74!) extraordinaire!  A great servant to patients and to our country.

Dr Hundley wasn't looking at the camera ... but he's been my advisor/mentor the past couple of years.

The next day was our official graduation.  Unfortunately, we were graduating with the entire campus of South Alabama, so it took ... a while.  We may or may not have snuck in phones, iPads, books, etc and occupied ourselves while the emcee rattled off about a thousand names and Jo Bonner delivered a speech (sorry Jo, but it was kind of boring).  The MD candidates walked across the stage second to last.  FINALLY we got our diplomas, and the president of South shook our hands and called us doctors!

Allison, Priyal, Liz, me, Riah and Shannon.  Going to miss these girls so much!

Me and Cody - great Christian guy - he's going to Vandy!

Me and Jay ... he correctly predicted that Stuart and I would marry after about 2 weeks of dating  =)

It was a long ceremony ... carb loading was needed

Me and Hope showing off the hoods!  She got engaged AND became a doctor in the same day!  Pretty exciting stuff!

My two favorite med school boys: Smitty and Brian

And to bring it full circle, the group from Gross Anatomy lab that I started the first day of school with: Sarah Beth, Henry and Antwan. 

I'll leave you with the words to the Hippocratic Oath.  It's the same oath spoken by physicians for hundreds of years, very slightly adapted from the original version.  Please note that it actually does NOT say, "First, do no harm"!

I swear by Apollo the physician, Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation.


To reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look up his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others.


I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgement, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.  I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.


With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art.  I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work.  Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; an, further from the seduction of females or males.


Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.


While I continue to keep this Oath, unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the Art, respected by all men, in all times!  But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

Joy

These last few weeks may have been some of the most stressful and hectic we've encountered thus far in our lives/marriage.  I haven't posted lately because, honestly, I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up my joy through our circumstances.  I don't want to bore anyone with details, or seem like I'm complaining, so I'll keep it brief and start with the positives:

- We're moving!  On my last post I showed some pictures of our new condo.  We're really excited about the new place and checking out a new town ...

- We found a renter for our Daphne condo!  After 1.5 years of unsuccessfully trying to sell our house, and 3 months of trying to find a renter, God has now answered our prayers!  We found a super nice guy who wants to make our house his home for the next year or so.  However, the market being what it is, we could not get a rent price near equivalent of what we pay on our mortgage.  That plus the new condo in C'ville means we'll be pinching our pennies more than ever!  Not to mention he wants to move in about 1.5 weeks before we can move into our new condo.  So that means we have to pack up quicker than expected and will be homeless for a bit!

- Stuart has been on the job hunt now for a few months.  We had some luck in C'ville with a job offer, but it would have been for a position that would be a few steps backward in his career goals.  Stuart, being the wonderful husband that he is, was willing to take it ... but after much discussion we decided it wouldn't be best for us.  So the hunt continues.  We are now considering options such as Stuart staying in Daphne and continuing work with Chevron until God shows him a position in C'ville.  Or ... we are also considering overseas rotations with Chevron (28 day on, 28 day off positions that would allow him to live with me in his off time).

All of these situations have dominated our thoughts, prayers and conversations for the last few months.  It's really been exhausting.  Our faith has been tested ... some days we pass the test and some days we fail.  Ultimately though we have faith in our Sovereign Lord and know that he will provide a way for us.  It may not be what we imagine now, but His plans are always greater than ours are!  Stu and I figure that in 10 years we will look back on all this and THEN realize why everything had to be as complicated as it is now ... and it will likely make a beautiful testimony of God's faithfulness for us.

I've learned a lot through these trials, and hope I will see more that God wants to show me.  I think we've seen that Satan will try his best to throw you off track and to make you lose sight of God's goodness.  We know that C'ville is where God wants us to be, and Match Day was such an exciting day for us.  But since, it seems that everything has gone wrong, from financial issues to people actually taunting my husband at work and saying he's not man enough to make me stay here so that he can keep his job!  Ugh!

I've also learned that whatever comes our way, we have to be joyous through it all.  I've been stressed before (med school, hello), and I've had tough personal and family issues to deal with, but this has brought to me a whole new level of stress and worry.  And as I mentioned I haven't been handling it well the whole time.  It got to the point where I wasn't excited about graduating Saturday, or having last visits with med school friends.  I finally realized (with a little help from my mother) that I was allowing Satan to steal my joy.  Once I realized that, I can't seem to get away from the word "joy".  Our new pastor at church (and one of our great friends here in Daphne), just started a series on Joy.  Every song I hear on the radio seems to be about joy regardless of your circumstances.  A lady in the store the other day asked me if I was a mother because I looked glowing and joyous (a little weird, but nice anyway)!

Joy is a Fruit of the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit lives within us as Christians and never changes, just as God Himself does not change.  So therefore, whatever circumstances we face, our joy should never change nor be taken away.

Now, I'll stop preaching  =)  But first, here are a couple songs that have meant a lot to me the past few weeks.  I'd just like to share!