Hello blog.

Well, it's been over a year since I posted I think. Oops. I downloaded the blogger app on my phone do I can blog all of the pictures of my cute kids that I take with my phone. Don't worry, I'll spare you the 20 pictures in a row of close ups of the carpet, or blurry kid selfies that my kids like to take!  Here are a few random recent ones to get us back into the blogging world! 

Simon likes to dig through the drawer of kitchen utensils. I kind of love when he walks around the house holding a spatula like a scepter. 

He also empties all the drawers and cabinets when he gets the chance. He was trying SO hard to reach the hair gel in this picture. 

Playing with Dad after work. 

We love Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a!  I need to just make us some cow tshirts to wear every year, since I always end up throwing something together last minute.

Easter 2011

Working on my 2011 photo book again...Still a loooong way to go til it gets done. Here are the pages I've done in the last couple of days!

 

fun at the park

 

We had  a fun visit from Timothy and Nicole and fam the last few days! We took the kids to the park yesterday, and I got to try out the new lens I got with some birthday money. I'm liking it a lot! I'm still learning how to work the settings in manual mode to get the lighting right, but I thought these ones turned out well!  And here's one of me and Timothy before he had to leave on Sunday.

Grocery Shopping. OR Stop Judging the Judgers.

I will admit that while I am grocery shopping, my 2 small children are generally crawling all over the cart, rather being strapped neatly in.

And I've noticed a few times lately the looks I get from older women who are worried that my child is going to fall out of the cart while I am reaching for a giant box of diapers and seemingly not paying attention. (Okay, one time I was talking on the phone and browsing through clearance leather gloves,  but I WAS also paying attention to my child).

My gut reaction to those looks of concern is to think, "Stop judging me! I have spent nearly every second of my life for the last 4.5 years with these children, I think I know their motor skills and behavioral patterns well enough to know when they are actually in danger of falling out of the cart! And furthermore, have you been grocery shopping with these little monkeys? I HAVE to multitask, or I would be spending all my time in the grocery store wrangling them, and never putting anything in my cart." Yes, I get defensive.

I was thinking about this scenario last night and realized that I was the one judging.  Maybe that old woman really was thinking ill thoughts about me and what a lousy mother I must be, but maybe she wasn't.  Maybe she is just a woman with a mothering heart who saw what appeared to be a child in danger of falling out of a cart onto the hard floor and was concerned.  

That was just a little eye-opening for me, to realize that even if I wasn't doing anything wrong in the first place, I need to stop judging people who I perceive to be judging me.  Hopefully this realization will help me not get so rattled by the looks I get from people as I heard my monkeys through the grocery aisles.

October Mom Auction

In case you haven't seen me post it lots of times in the last few months, I've been participating in a fun auction on Facebook that my friend Serene puts together each month.  There's lots of cute stuff, usually things like jewelry, baby items, hair accessories, and a few vinyl holiday decor things.  All made by moms! Check it out, and bid on something to support a mom!

CLICK HERE to go to the auction! Auction closes Thursday, Oct. 11 at 10pm MST.

The lingo, the insanity, and the stones.

Here's what's been on my mind this week (I'm sure you're just dying to know!):

Residency programs.  I've been a busy little bee informally researching residency programs for Dr. Trenty Poo.  He's currently leaning toward family med, unless he discovers he likes something else better over the course of his rotations this year, so that's what I've been looking into. 

As a little background info, I was added to a couple of facebook groups by a friend, Lives of Doctor Wives, and LDS Doctor Wives. I thought they seemed weird, a little silly, and a little dramatic at first, but I will tell you that I really kind of enjoy them now, and have learned a lot of useful information from them about how things like interviewing, applying for residencies, good qualities to look for in a residency program, etc. I think I mostly have the lingo down now.  My DrH is MS3 and I'm looking into dual accredited, unopposed FM programs that he will begin PGY1. See, lingo down.

Anyway, as far as researching family med (the aforementioned FM) programs, the most useful info I've gained from the fb group has been that of unopposed family med programs. Basically what it means is that there are no other competing programs (i.e. internal med, emergency med, OBGYN) at the same facility, which results in the FM residents getting more experience with a variety of patients/procedures/pathology, than they would if there were residents from other specialties working in the same hospital. As is logical, a lot of the bigger cities or big med school hospitals have multiple specialty programs in them, so it's been interesting to look into all the programs and see where they are.  There are some unopposed programs that might not make the cut to our application list because they are WAY out in the boonies.  I've got to be able to hit up Target or Kohls on occasion...and being within a few hours of an airport and temple would be nice.  But we haven't really started the official list yet, just gathering info.

The other thing we've been looking for, where DO residencies are concerned, is it seems like a good thing to find a program that is dual accredited, or in other words, it accepts both MD and DO students.  Well, I think most MD programs will accept a DO student if they have taken the MD boards--USMLE (Trent has/will) but there are also programs that take both types of degrees whether you've taken the USMLE or COMLEX (DO boards--which Trent has/will have also taken).

So in a nutshell that is what I've been looking at.  And from there you can look at the benefits/educational info, which is really exciting! Seeing that many schools fully pay insurance for the resident and his family, and vision and dental, life insurance, disability (and disability for HIV if you contract during residency--yikes!), as well as paying for licensing, board prep, housing stipend, etc, etc, makes me really hope we can get into one of those schools, instead of one of the ones with lots of "No"s on the list of benefits. I've mostly been looking in AZ, NV, TX, and the midwest, as well as a tiny bit in the northwest.

The other thing on my mind has been exercising.  Trent has been telling me since he started med school that I need to exercise because my genes are working against me.  My dad had a major heart attack almost 10 years ago and is now diabetic, so I figured I had probably better start trying to be healthier.  Because let's be honest, I've never been a regular exerciser in my life.  I didn't do sports or dance or anything that had me active on a daily basis.  I did poorly in a P.E. class at BYU because my workout log was crap.

So the past couple of weeks I've been trying to do better, I went to yoga and aerobics each once at the church, and did my Gold's Gym 30 minute videos about 3 times, all in the course of 12 days I think. And that was really good for me.  And then Trent got some birthday money and bough the Insanity workout DVDs from someone on Craigslist.  So yesterday we did the fit test at the beginning of the program. And well....we couldn't even finish it! Haha. That is how out of shape we are.  Today we jumped right into the first cardio workout (which we also had to stop and rest a few times during the end) but we did it! Day 2 of 60 down! That being said, Trent will be in Tucson after we finish the first month, so we won't get to to do them together straight through.  I'm thinking about signing up for a 5k around Thanksgiving, to give me some motivation to keep moving while Trent is gone.

I've never really made it more than a week at trying to work out consistently, so I'm pretty proud of myself (it's been 15 days now, with 7 work outs, I believe).  Also, I'm not noticing amazing differences, but I do feel pretty good.  Kind of one of those you don't know what you're missing till you try things...I felt fine before, but I feel better now, even in just 2 weeks. And bonus, I think it will be good for my self-esteem to feel like I can do it.  Which may sound weird, but as someone who never worked out consistently, it always seemed unattainable to be in good shape (I'm a wimp), but now I feel like I could get there eventually.

I told Trent I am going to buy some new work out clothes if I can do it consistently for a month.  I did cheat a couple of days ago and buy a cute magenta work out shirt (I don't know what else you call it...) that was on clearance at Target for $6.48 (they are usually $20 there, which is way out of my range....$6.50 felt like s splurge even, haha). But if we do good and keep it up until my original month is over, then I think I will buy some pants or something, but I may check out Ross to see if I can find a better deal. 

I've been trying to plan healthier meals too. I made a 2 lbs. of dried pinto beans in the crockpot and got about 12 cups of homemade refried beans out of that. We had tostadas with those (no meat) and it was super delicious (Trent and I thought).  The boys were not big fans.  I don't know what to do with them. I don't know if I could really convince them to eat more fruits and vegetables unless I purged the house of everything else so they had to starve or eat them.  But I don't really see that happening, so we will see.  I've got stuff for lettuce wraps and Caroline's yummy black bean salad, or in other words, delicious to me, a dinner-induced fit in the making for William and empty tummy for Joe.

Ooh, and on an unrelated note, I just bought a bunch of birthstone gemstones for my sadly neglected shop! Yay! More cute mommy necklaces, here I come! I have a couple of cute ideas for them, so hopefully I can get some cranked out, photo'd, and posted in time for Christmas shopping!  I also have more rosette earrings to make, which I may work on while listening to Conference tomorrow.

My new therapy.

I keep thinking I need to write my thoughts for a few different reasons:

1. For posterity, being the family historian, etc. Pretty straightforward.

2. To give my brain some constructive work to do. The farther and farther away I get from my graduation in 2008, the more it feels like I've got brain soup up there instead of a functioning organ.

3. Therapy. At least I hope it works for that, for me. I get overwhelmed by life on a regular basis, so maybe getting everything out of my head will be helpful on that front.

I'm feeling kind of weird right now.  Trent is on call this weekend, so I just got back from doing church by myself with the boys. I feel like it went fine. I debated between sitting in our usual front/side pew or sitting farther back since I'd be there with no helper. I decided maybe William would behave better if we sat in the usual spot so he would know we had the same expectations.  The only bad part was I felt like I had to get up and chase Jonas down more than a few times and take him out once, so I'm hoping I didn't make too much of a spectacle of myself.  Maybe people wondered why I sat way up there if I was alone with my two small children. Whatever. It was worth a shot. And let's be honest. I'll probably do the same thing next time.

I teach the 12-13-year-old Sunday School class in my ward, and I haven't been feeling super successful at my job.  I know it's a hard age--to be, and to teach.  I almost laughed when I got the calling, because I had avoided that age group like the plague during my El Ed training, so it was almost like a joke--apparently I couldn't out run it if that's what Heavenly Father wants me to do. The class is good sized, usually in the 8-10 kids range. They are good kids, I think, but I usually feel like I'm not really connecting with them very well. There are a couple (of course) that are constantly talking out, often with some jab about one of the other class members.  It was unfortunate today, after staying up till midnight making cookies to butter them up into being a good little class for me, (and to hopefully let them know that I like them and care about them) that I had to stop the lesson very early on and just give it to them straight. "Look, guys, you are old enough to know what is appropriate to say in a lesson and what is not, and I'm tired of the dumb comments every week, so use that filter in your head and don't say stuff you know you shouldn't!"...or something to that effect. Well that kind of killed the mood, but I think I mostly got my point across. I did have to go further later on and remind them that I am in fact NOT stupid, when someone was trying to tell me they weren't doing anything with their phone, when they obviously were. I know, just typing this I can see why I'm not a class favorite.  And while I'm at it with my pity party I will admit that it does hurt my feelings when they act all disappointed when I walk through the door. 

What's funny, is after church the bishop stopped me in the hall and told me that he was about to go talk to someone who they are calling to be a team teacher for me.  And you would think after hearing my teaching woes that I would have felt really happy about that. But I guess I think to much about myself (which is ironic since I taught a lesson about selflessness today), so my first thought goes to me obviously not being good enough to do it on my own, and then to thinking, "Oh great, if they have another teacher, then the really will be disappointed when I teach them." So stupid, right? I have such a hard time blocking those negative thought sometimes (okay, more than sometimes).  I do feel like I need to point out that there are some really great kids in my class, and I often think "I hope my boys will be like ______ when they are that age." It's not all terrible and gloomy, I just worry about it, since I feel it is a big responsibility to help those kids see what is important in life, and I want to do a good job. I guess I probably am doing a good(ish) job, but right now I want to FEEL like I'm doing a good job.  Hopefully I wasn't given this calling so that the kids can learn how to be kind to a teacher who is failing miserably. ;)

Going back to me feeling weird...I think part of the reason is that while everything didn't go perfectly, it really was fine. But it feels like just a drop in the bucket to what I will have to do alone while Trent is working for the next 5 years and beyond. So I guess the weirdness is just mixed feelings.... Yay me, we were on time and looking good for church, but good grief do I feel mentally and physically exhausted afterward, so how am I going to keep doing this?? Well, mostly I think this weekend was good practice for harder ones to come. Trent was on call all weekend,  but since he is a lowly medical student (with a preceptor who is apparently not very busy when he is on call) he got to come home every evening. That was very nice, because that will not be the case in residency; so I think it was a good way to ease us in to the craziness.

I want to start writing more, and I don't mean it to all sound depressing. I'm sorry if this does.  I don't really mean it to be; I'm just trying to get my thoughts out in such a way that they feel honest.  You know, for therapy's sake. I'm hoping the more I write them down, the less stressed I will feel, resulting in happier sounding thoughts. :) Don't worry, I know that I am beyond blessed with an amazingly wonderful life, and I do love it so much. That's another reason I want to write it all down, to remind myself how wonderful it really is.

I feel like I get tunnel vision so often and all I can see or focus on is what is stressing me or what is bad, when really there is so much good.  I am grateful to teach my Sunday School class. The lessons are great, and they help me to be better. Take today's lesson on selflessness, not my earlier blunder, but a different example. During Relief Society I got a text from my neighbor, asking if I could pick her up from work tonight. I started typing this long message about how I could do it if Trent gets home, but I'm not sure what time he will be home, so if he's not back I won't be able to because my kids will be sleeping.  I stopped and erased it, remembering a point in my lesson the previous hour where I specifically talked about getting wrapped up in my schedule and my kids' schedule and how I need to be more flexible and just help people when they need it, instead of worrying so much about me and my schedule. So I just told her I would.  So I may be waking my kids up around 9 to pick her up if Trent isn't home by then, but at least it will mean that I learned something from my own lesson. And it won't be the end of the world even if they are a little tired tomorrow.

Anyway, I think I'm all typed out for now.