Madness.

I haven't written in a while... again. Things have been a LITTLE hectic. I'm sure everyone who reads this already knows that Ben's dad had a stroke around Thanksgiving. We've been spending every weekend visiting at the hospital, although we did carve out some time this past weekend for friends in the evenings. His dad is doing very well physically. The slurred speech that he had just after the stroke is all but gone, and he is slowly getting his strength back. He lives alone and laid on the floor for two days after falling during the stroke, so he was very dehydrated, malnourished, and in a lot of pain. He lost some muscle mass when his body started into starvation mode also, so it's been a long process getting him strong again. He's using a walker now (which he didn't need before) and is able to pull himself up off the bed and scoot around in the bed on his own - which is great since he could barely move on his own when he first got to the hospital. He's a GBMC on a rehab floor and has been there for a little over 2 weeks now. He does about three hours of therapy per day, including physical, occupational and speech therapy. They keep him busy, and it seems to be working well. He's actually having surgery today, in about half an hour, to clean out one of his blocked carotid arteries (which was probably the source of his stroke). Both are blocked - one completely, and the other about 90%. They're only operating on the 90%-blocked artery, because apparently once an artery is completely clogged, the plaque quickly builds up all the way to the brain and cleaning it out would be complicated and risky. There is still a small risk - about 5% - that he could have a stroke during this surgery. Since they're moving the plaque, there's always a risk that some of it could escape and travel to his brain. Please keep him in your prayers!

We got Ben's wedding band last week, which he's VERY happy with :) We had it special ordered and got a great deal on it (I saw it at Mervis for $795 and we got it for $490 with a hook-up from a friend!). It's palladium (similar to platinum but not as pricey!) with a hammered finish - just what he wanted. I'm really glad I was able to get him the one he wanted. He saw one just like it at Jared in white gold for $1199, which was the first one we found, and I was really worried that I'd end up either having to get him something else or break the bank. Also wedding-related, I found vases that will work for the centerpieces - very good news. They're about $2 more than I wanted to spend, but they've been so hard to find that I'm just going to suck it up and buy them. It's pretty hilarious that this is the kind of crap that makes it into my blog. Wow. We've also finished buying gifts for our bridesmaids and groomsmen, with the exception of a few loose ends. I've spent the last few months slowly collecting individual rhinestone pins for all of my bridesmaids to wear on their dresses. I'm so happy with them and I'm so glad I got a unique one for each girl - they're going to look great :) I just hope it's something they'll use later on. When I buy pins, I usually don't actually pin them on anything - I string them on a chain and wear them as necklaces. They usually make cute pendants.

In other news, I'm working on trying to line up a summer research job at UMD medical school. Once we're married, Ben and I hope to be living in White Marsh, which would be about an hour and a half commute for me, on a good day, to NIH in Bethesda where I work now. That idea doesn't exactly thrill me, to say the least. There isn't an official program for entering 1st year med students to do research, but I'm trying to get something set up through the director of student research. If I just wanted to volunteer it would be easy, but I REALLY need to be paid. Finding the funding is the difficult part, because the student research funding usually comes from the school, and I technically won't be a student there yet. As I'm sure you can tell, I've basically decided that I'm going to UMD :) I'm really happy about it! I guess at some point I just got over the stupid crap that kept me from being ecstatic about it, and now I'm darn near ECSTATIC!

I guess i'll stop babbling. This wasn't a very interesting post, I apologize :(

OH, one more thing, as of TODAY, Ben and I have been together for 8 1/2 years :) THAT'S something to smile about!

Too much to be thankful for

Whew! It's been a while huh?! I feel like I always start my posts this way... hmmm. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to all, and let the madness begin :) I really don't know where the money is going to come from this year. Last year I just charged stuff, which I refuse to do this year - trying to maintain the debt-free status as I enter my marriage. Well, technically I'm nowhere NEAR debt-free (about $20K in undergrad loans, soon to be multiplied many times over!) but in terms of credit card debt, that's just unnecessary and I refuse. So I apologize to everyone in advance if your Christmas gift is lame (or non-existent...).

Quite frankly - if I may be frank with you all - I'm already starting to regret our wedding budget. It's too late to scale back now, but holy crap. Is this amount of money REALLY necessary for ONE day? I know it's the most important day of my life thus far - trust me, I KNOW - but it really is one day, one party, and then we're left with nothing because we poured it all into the wedding. I just wish we had left ourselves some breathing room. I'm literally putting away 3/4 of my paycheck every month (I get paid monthly - it's a stipend), right off the top. This leaves little if any room for things like Christmas, lunches and nights out with friends, and even things I want for myself for the wedding that I didn't include in the budget... like shoes for instance. Even Ben's wedding ring (I figured it was unfair to put his ring in the budget and not mine, since he'd already bought mine, so I left it out. Idiot). Ugh. It's just rough. It's going to be a beautiful, wonderful, memorable, FUN wedding - there's no doubt. I know I won't be disappointed. We won't wish we had gone bigger or had nicer food or sprung for the open bar or had a better DJ or anything... we've already done all those things. We just might wish we had more money left over. It's funny how we NEVER would have saved this amount of money if it weren't for the wedding - we wouldn't have had the discipline or the motivation without an immediate, important goal looming less than a year away. It's so sad - it's obviously possible, and we could have saved this money just to start a savings account for our future or pay off some debts or whatever. I'm glad we're getting married and not just saving for some unknown future (unknown in terms of when we'd be getting married and living together), but it's a good lesson for both of us, I think, to see that with some discipline and an important goal, we did it. Hopefully we'll be able to look back on this and think "if we did it then, we can do it again". Of course we won't be able to save this much money again for a very long time - we won't have this much financial freedom in terms of our income to responsibility ratio for at least a decade, I'm sure. But just to know that we were able to REALLY stretch and pinch and put away such a large percentage of our "free" income should serve as a motivator for us in the future.

So, just a word to the wise - PRAYERFULLY consider your wedding budget before setting it in stone, and if possible, set up your married life budget BEFORE you set up your wedding budget. It'll give you a sense of just how tight money will be AFTER the big day, and it might make you think twice about delegating every penny that you can possibly save between the engagement and the wedding to the wedding itself. If I had been able to set up our post-wedding budget earlier, I know I would have scaled back. I would have made sure that we were putting aside several thousand of what we could save between now and May 29th for the days AFTER May 29th. I'd like to have at least two months worth of our combined monthly income sitting in an emergency savings account - that is our goal for post-wedding savings. That way if something happens to one of us, we know we have a two-month buffer. Or if an unexpected bill comes up, we have something to fall back on. Now, we're in a situation where we'll be trying to save up that two-month buffer at the rate of $50 per month (that's how much we'll be physically able to save, based on Ben's base pay and my med school borrowing, according to our budget). That's going to take years. Now granted, that's worst case scenario. We'll get wedding money, Ben will get overtime money as long as he's allowed to keep working it, etc. But we could have easily put that much money aside out of our wedding budget and still found a way to have a great wedding. Just food for thought, for anyone reading who isn't married yet.

So anyway, it's Thanksgiving, and I really shouldn't be stressing and complaining about money. God is good, He will provide, and He has taught us valuable lessons through all of this. In the end, I have so much to be thankful for - more than one person SHOULD have I think. I'm marrying the person I met when I was 13 years old. We were just kids, and God allowed us to meet each other, grow together over 8 years, find it somewhere in our adolescent mentalities to truly commit to each other, knit ourselves into each other's families, and all without ever breaking up. He spared us the heartache and frustration and loneliness of dating and being single (not that those are bad things, but they can be incredibly painful at times!). He didn't force us to try out lots of different people. I guess that the way our relationship developed did bring up its own challenges though. We had to get over the idea that maybe there's someone else out there, or maybe we need to "experience other people". We had to get through A LOT of ups and downs that young people aren't well-equipped to deal with. We had to find the maturity to stay together out of pure commitment when the "feelings" didn't come easily, even for weeks on end, when we were just high school kids. We had to deal with living apart over four years and spending only limited amounts of time together, during a time in our lives when everyone else was dating around and I was constantly meeting new people and having new experiences, while Ben felt left behind and out-of-the-loop at home. We've actually been through a lot together, and had so many opportunities to grow apart. But we always grew together. Now, I have an entire extra family to be thankful for. I have, HANDS DOWN, the most amazingly kind, giving, caring, FUN, friendly, and loving sisters-in-law that anyone could ever ask for. I couldn't have found better ones if I went searching for them on my own. My mother-in-law is simply one of the most spiritual, kind, compassionate, outgoing, selfless women I've ever met. These people took me into their family with such warmth and such complete lack of hesitation, and I could never express how much they mean to me. Through them, I've been blessed with a sweet, smart, beautiful niece, and two absolutely PRECIOUS, entertaining, adorable little nephews. I've gotten to watch them grow and become such a part of their lives that they don't know their uncle Ben without me. I have my own incredibly supportive family who have given me all they could give in order to see me succeed, and have never withheld a single thing from me. My parents have loved me with such devotion and pride throughout my life that I don't have a clue what it's like to grow up with anything less than amazing parents. I'm in a very small minority in that respect. I've been accepted to a GREAT medical school that is going to give me the opportunity to pursue a career that I love, make a great living to support my family, and have the career I want to have all right here in Maryland with my family. And there are so many little things, too. I have a job now that allows me to drive in to work and home again every day with my mom, allowing us time together that we wouldn't have otherwise. I have a roof over my head and have never had a real need go unmet in my life. I had a wonderful undergraduate experience that gave me some of the greatest memories and the greatest friends I could have ever asked for, and allowed me to remain close enough to home to maintain the friendships that made me who I was when I got there. And now, those amazing friends love me enough to be a part of my wedding day with me - spending their hard-earned money and their scarce time and energy making my big day special.

Obviously, I could go on all day. The reality is, we all could! No matter what season of life we find ourselves in, there are always blessings to count. Even if it's counting each breath as we take it, God gives us so much to be thankful for. Each beat of our hearts, each moment that all of the intricate systems that keep us healthy and alive function perfectly together... being a science nerd really makes you wonder how God keeps it all running smoothly! But He does, because He loves us and He put us here to enjoy the fruits of His creation. And now, I'm going to go enjoy one of God's greatest gifts... a good night's sleep, in a warm and comfortable bed, with a full belly and a full heart :)

Deconstructing my ego, and other related topics

I haven't blogged in a while, so surely I MUST have SOMETHING to say... I'll just start writing and hope it comes to me...

Ok, well, first of all I got some more medical school news - wait-listed at Mount Sinai. Which is fine, since I really can't move to New York at this point in my life. Yesterday I saw Evan for the first time in about three weeks and he cried when I picked him up - perfect example for why I'm not moving to NYC! I cannot deal with my nieces and nephews not knowing me. Lord willing, there will be more babies in our family in the next few years, and I can't deal with missing out on that. This is just the first of many career-related decisions that I will make where my family has to come first.

I have to admit, though, that God is definitely using this process to humble me. For most of my life my teachers, parents, friends, family and Ben have been constantly praising me for my academic achievements, and it's difficult not to develop a bit of an ego about it. I try very hard not to let it grow, or to let other people see it, but I'm fully aware that it's there inside of me. I'm sure it rears its ugly head from time to time without me being completely aware of it though. Anyway, getting all of these interviews really got me thinking that I was a super-competitive candidate, and at this point I really was expecting to get into a lot of schools. Everyone kept telling me I would, and the evidence seemed to be pointing that way up until now. I could still technically get into the schools that wait-listed me, but I didn't think I'd be wait-listed in the first place. Medical school admissions are EXTREMELY competitive. Most schools interview less than 20% of applicants and accept about 20% of those that they interview. It's pretty intense. So why did I think I was a shoo-in? Because apparently the devil has me convinced that I'm this intellectual stud, and I need to get over myself. So here comes God to knock me off my high-horse... Hopkins? "NO." Ok, they're #2 in the country... I can handle being rejected there. UVA and Mount Sinai? "Ummm, maybe. We'll see if the better candidates accept our offers first and then we'll let you know." Ouch. They're tied for #23 in the country. I kinda thought I could hack it at that level. Maryland? "We'll take you!" Great! Buuuut they're #43. No huge accomplishment there (this is my ego talking, not how I really feel at the end of the day). Drexel? "Sure!" Yeah but they're not even ranked. Great. This has been my inner thought process, unfortunately. It's pretty pitiful actually, and I'm glad that God has used this situation to make me more aware of how pitiful it really is! At the end of the day, these people who ARE doctors and know how serious this is looked at me and said "Yeah. I think we can trust her with people's lives. Let's give her a shot." Holy CRAP! Seriously? ME?!?! Sure, I've gotten good grades and participated in a few clubs and done some biomedical research, but does that REALLY qualify me for that kind of trust and confidence? It's truly a gift - an incredible opportunity and an ENORMOUS responsibility - and here I sit disappointed that "better" schools didn't accept me. Even being wait-listed at a school like Mount Sinai is an incredible honor. And to be ACCEPTED anywhere is simply nothing less than a miracle and a gift from God. What is WRONG with me?!?!

So, all that having been said, I'm feeling pretty excited about Maryland and preparing myself to be a Terp :) I still have an interview at Georgetown, this coming Wednesday actually, so I'm keeping that one in the running as well. It's a Jesuit school, which I think has the potential to be a great fit for me. They really focus on patient care and caring for the WHOLE patient - mind, body and spirit - which is really what I'm about, when I consider why I want to be a doctor and what motivates me to care for people. It would be great to learn medicine in an environment where the spiritual aspect isn't ignored and minimized, and where MAYBE there's still some acknowledgement of our Creator playing a role in people's lives. At schools that are very research-focused and heavily into evidence-based medicine and basic science (which are all important things), the ideas of God and spiritualilty tend to be scoffed at not only as personal choices, but as elements of patient care. I can certainly learn on my own how to blend my spirituality with my medical practice, and I'm sure that even at completely secular institutions I'd find mentors that are spiritual and can help to guide me in that - I've already met several just in my interviews. But I'm certainly considering the possibility that Georgetown could be the place that God wants me to be. So we shall see. I feel like the fact that I'm interviewing so late there could mean that I don't have a GREAT shot at being accepted, but who knows. It's in God's hands. What a great feeling :)

Speaking of God's hands, we went to a marriage seminar this weekend, given by Dr. Gary Thomas. He's a world-reknowned writer on the subject of Christian Marriage - I've actually been reading one of his books recently called "Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands", which has some great insights into the male perspective on the marriage relationship, motivating your husband, and the blessing that you can be to your husband by focusing on becoming a strong, godly woman. After the seminar I also bought his most popular book "Sacred Marriage" and the weekly devotional that goes along with it. My mom and Tim do that devotional, as do my Pastor and his wife, and they all rave about it. Dr. Thomas really was a GREAT speaker - I wish every married person I know could have been there. He really brought things into perspective for me on so many issues, and I hope it's going to make me appreciate Ben and our marriage more deeply and pour more of myself into our marriage with even more enthusiasm and energy than I had previously thought. It was awesome :) I can't say enough about this period of preparation that we're going through - it's been so wonderful and inspiring and reassuring for us and we've learned SO MUCH. Having been through this, I can definitely see myself getting into marriage ministries in the future as I search for ways to serve the Lord in our church (wherever that ends up being), because I already feel so passionate about people getting adequate preparation for marriage. It's not that I think that people who didn't take a class or something are doomed. It's just been SO helpful to us and I think we're going into this with much healthier, more realistic expectations than we might have had previously. I don't think we even realized that we were coming into it with any well-defined expectations at all, but they were certainly lurking there in the back of our minds. As Dr. Thomas says, "What if marriage is designed more to make you holy than to make you happy?" That's really the essence of unrealistic expectations in this country. We expect marriage - finding our "soulmate" - to make us happy. When we aren't blissfully happy all the time, or we even fall into a deep rut where the feelings aren't there or our spouses are driving us crazy - we assume that we must have married the "wrong" person (otherwise we'd be happier!), and the divorce rate rises to 50%. If marriage was designed by God to shape us and refine us toward the image of Christ, and to prepare us for the challenges that God has in store for us in fulfilling each of our purposes in life, then we should EXPECT it to be difficult. That's Gary Thomas's core message, in a nutshell. Anyway, it was great :)

Tonight, I'm making a thanks-for-helping-with-our-wedding dinner for our parents. I think I'm making a cheese fondue, salad, and a shrimp & pasta dish. I've never cooked for this many people before, so it should be interesting...

A New America

I don't usually do this, and this is not why I started a blog, but today I need a place to vent my political frustrations. Tears of joy filled my eyes last night as I watched President-elect Barack Obama give his acceptance speech, as he became the first African-American to be elected President of the United States. I watched as Senator John McCain congratulated this incredible achievement, not only for Barack Obama, but for America as a country. The achievement of moving beyond both race and political partisanship, reaching across the deeply entrenched divides that have plagued this country for decades and even centuries, to elect a black President. White people, black people, hispanic people, young and old, Republicans and Democrats voted for him because they believe that he is the best man for the job. Sure, there are some black people who voted for him because he's black. There are also a lot of white people who refused to vote for him because he's black. Just like there are Republicans who refused to consider him because he's a democrat, and democrats who refused to consider McCain because he's a republican. There will ALWAYS be shallow people who are hung up on labels or embittered by past experiences and who simply cannot be reached, on both sides of the aisle. But last night, we watched America grow up. We watched millions of people put those things aside to vote against the grain, turning traditionally red states blue. In the end, though, it isn't about red and blue states. That's the point. In electing Obama last night, we proved that those lines don't mean a damn thing. That America is ready to forget the "political" motivators and focus on promoting the good of our country, whatever it takes. This is not to say that McCain couldn't have done a world of good for this country too - He loves this country beyond measure, and beyond what most of us will ever experience or understand. The point is that regardless of which way people could have swung last night - it could just as easily have been the election of the first female VP in history that stunned us all - people were WILLING to swing. They were WILLING to take a leap of faith and do something that no one would have thought possible even five years ago. Isn't that encouraging? Even to those of you who didn't support Obama in this election, doesn't it feel like this country is moving closer to a place of healing, where we can finally move forward and work together to make life better for all of us? Isn't there a symbolism buried in last night's historic election that speaks to EVERY American? This result is not just a victory for the democrats or a victory for African Americans. It is a victory for America, that we can all be proud of. It is a symbol of our willingness as a nation to put all the pettiness aside and come together for the common good. I take that back - it's not just a symbol, it's hard evidence. As cheesy as that sounds, it's an unavoidable truth. There is so much hard work to be done and so much progress to be made. Even most Republicans admit - as did John McCain - that this country is in desperate need of change. You may not have gotten the specific change you were hoping for, but we certainly woke up in a different America this morning. Let it be an inspiration to us all, not a point of contention. Let's look forward to healing the intense partisan divide in this country - an achievement that has such potential for completely remodeling the face of American politics, America's image throughout the world, and the way we go about the business of progress in our country. I was so disheartened to hear Republicans (some crazy ones, mind you - this is not a generalization) still focusing on the issue of race even today, still claiming that Obama is out to steal America for the blacks or for the muslims, or even claiming that he's the anti-christ. Have they been listening at all? Anyone who has followed this campaign with even the smallest glimmer of an attempt at objectiveness or neutrality, should be able to readily see that Barack Obama loves this country, for the opportunities that it has given him and his family, for the good it has done in the world over its two and a half centuries of existence, and for the potential it has in the future. His vision is all about uniting America - not dividing it - because he has worked in the trenches and seen the devastation that a divided America can bring. He ran not as a black man promoting some agenda for black Americans, but as a compassionate man fighting for the needs of the poor and the working class - the people who have no one to fight for them in a government dominated by special interests and billion-dollar corporations. I think we're all fed up with the billion-dollar corporations and their trips to Hawaii while our grandparents can't retire because they just lost their 401Ks. Taxing the upper-class more heavily doesn't mean "redistribution of wealth", it means holding people responsible for the contribution that this country deserves in return for the opportunities it has provided, and asking those who have the means to help, to do so.

I'll stop before I start addressing individual topics, but the bottom line is, Barack Obama is about lifting up this entire country as a whole. As heavily Christian as the right-wing claims to be, this is something that should unite us. The Bible values service and giving to the poor - it is our duty as Christians, it's not just something we do to be nice sometimes. It's our calling. It's a value that we should hold up right next to preserving the sanctity of marriage and preserving the lives of the innocent unborn (an issue on which I admittedly disagree with the president-elect). If we don't take care of those in need, no one will. With as much wealth as this country has, poverty should not exist. We're just too greedy. We want the credit and we want our due for the hard work we've done, and we don't like sharing. We're all guilty of it, myself certainly included. We work hard and we don't want to let go of what we've earned. We need to do better, and America deserves better. I think we can unite in that.

Praise the Lord

After all the hemming and hawing, all the fretting, the worrying... today, I received my Hopkins rejection letter. It made me smile :) I was so worried that I'd have to make a difficult decision between my happiness and my education, and now I don't have to make that choice. God came through for me, once again, answering my prayers by showing me where He wants me to be. Or, at least, where He doesn't want me to be. Praise the Lord, is all I can say!

Our "wedsite"

It just occurred to me that people might like to check out our wedding website (after all, I did make it for OTHER PEOPLE to look at!). So, here it is:

www.theknot.com/ourwedding/JennaKeyser&BenBonner

I need to vent

My dog died today :'( My sweet, beloved Jasmine. My very first pet, that my mom and I had to beg my dad for over the course of many weeks, months and years. She was in relatively good health for being 15 1/2 years old - just some weakness in her hind end and gradual vision and hearing loss. Standard for a dog that old. But last night, she apparently had some sort of neurological episode. She may have had a stroke, but my mom looked up her symptoms online and it looks more like a brain tumor that finally began producing symptoms. She started throwing up all over the place and her eyes were bouncing back and forth and she lost the use of her legs. She eventually stopped throwing up, but her eyes kept moving back and forth in her head all night and all morning, and she could only hold herself up on her front legs for a few seconds at a time. She hadn't eaten in a day and a half and she was refusing water, which was a sure sign that she knew she was dying - Jasmine normally drinks water like it's going out of style. My mom took her to the vet this morning to be put to sleep. Apparently the first shot (a sedative that they give before the lethal shot) stopped the eye movements, so she could actually make eye contact, which made my mom feel better. She said that Jasmine gave her one last kiss before they gave her the lethal shot. How heartbreaking is that? So it was a pretty sad day for me.

To distract myself, I'm stealing this survey from Amberly's blog, and I'm going to fill it out. You don't have to read it if you don't want to - it's just self-therapy.

I am: a child of God

I think: that this country deserves more honest leadership, and that Barack Obama is going to win next week

I want: to be an unsually caring and comforting doctor

I have: more happiness than anyone deserves

I dislike: mustard. milk. asparagus. lies.

I miss: college. I made some of the best friends in the world, and some amazing memories

I fear: losing someone I love

I feel: an immense sense of responsibility, having been given the opportunity to become a doctor

I hear: the theme song from "Friends" - it's on TV

I smell: dinner. my dad is whipping up something to eat. i will miss this when i move out!

I crave: more time with ben. i can never get enough!

I cry: because my dad & my grammy aren't saved. and because i miss jasmine.

I usually: make too much of little things. it's something i need to work on.

I regret: not taking every opportunity to tell my family about the Lord

I search: for the courage to face death one day.

I wonder: how God will bless us next, and how He will carry us through the challenges of the next four years and beyond in our new marriage

I love: God, Ben, my family, and medicine.

I care: about the homeless, the economy, the war, better healthcare, and seeing washington change. and i truly, deeply believe that only one of these candidates can hack it.

I always: say I love you before i leave whoever i'm with

I worry: about balancing my roles as mother and wife with my career as a doctor. that i'll disappoint my kids sometimes. it's the kind of job where you can't always drop it and say "i choose my family". someone might lose their life.

I am not: as outgoing as I feel sometimes. not sure why...

I remember: what it was like to fall in love so many years ago, because i still feel it every day

I believe: that God is behind our marriage 100%

I dance: at the bar with my friends, or with ben

I sing: alone in the car

I don't always: remember the events on my calendar. which is why i keep three calendars, so i can always access one of them!

I argue: because i miss him and i want to hoard all his time for myself. but i know i can't.

I write: well. it's gotten me very far in life.

I win: when i finally marry ben in may :) I WIN!

I lose: not much. i'm usually the one to find things.

I wish: that i had more freedom to have kids when i want to, rather than being forced to wait until it fits into my educational/career timeline

I listen: to my ipod a lot. sometimes all day, when i need to just keep to myself and be "alone" even though i'm at work. it's my escape.

I don't understand: John McCain, anymore. I've always had so much respect for him. I'll never understand how he could prioritize getting elected above selecting a useful, experienced VP candidate who could actually contribute to his administration.

I can usually be found: in the lab, or with ben

I watch: the world go by, every day. i try to savor little bits of beauty and little moments of peace, so that i always appreciate the life that we're given here.

I need: water, food, warmth and love. that's really all.

I forget: the arguments and disagreements and remember the feeling of his arms around me

I am happy: that i'll be joining ben's wonderful family in a few short months :)

I Hate Money.

This week's marriage class was on finances. So now I'm rapidly spiraling downward into clinical depression. It's not that I didn't know it was going to be tight for us, but putting it on paper really sucked. I have thought about putting together a budget countless times before now, but I really had no clue what to expect in terms of my medical school financial aid budget for living expenses so I figured it was probably useless to try to crunch numbers. Now that I've gotten into UMD, I used their living expense budget as an example to work with. I don't know if I've ever explained this before, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but med school financial aid works like this: No one works, everyone takes out loans for tuition and living expenses. That's just life, and there's no way around it. You simply CANNOT work your way through medical school. You will fail, or kill yourself, or both. So each school, depending on cost of living in its surrounding area and what kind of housing options, medical insurance, etc. it offers (if any), makes up a living expenses budget, which when combined with tuition and fees costs, becomes the maximum amount that they can qualify for in government grad loans. If the school says its students can live on $21,000 a year in living expenses, that's what they can borrow (plus tuition and fees obviously). If it says $13,000 a year, that's what they can borrow. Otherwise, you're looking at private students loans from banks, which rely on your credit score and the current economic climate (not so great, I'm sure you've noticed!), and always have a variable interest rate. Government loan rates are fixed, and some of them don't accrue interest while you're in school. So basically, a school can really screw you over financially if their budget doesn't really meet your realistic living expense needs. Since Hopkins offers cheap-ass first-year housing ($425 a month!), that's what they use to calculate living expenses. Comes out to less than $14,000 a year. I need to talk to them and find out if there's a different budget for married students who can't utilize that housing, but for now, it looks like I couldn't even afford to go there if, by chance, I were to get in. They also consider parent AND step-parent income when determining how much you're eligible to borrow, which would also screw me since my parents aren't helping me pay for this. Maryland, on the other hand, has a living expense budget of about $21,000 a year, which comes out to about $600 more per month to live on than Hopkins' budget. AND they consider students independent and don't ask for any parental information. YEAH.

So anyway, after putting it all down on paper, even with UMD's great living expense budget, it's still going to be rough. I hope you all will forgive me if I can't meet you for lunch or go out to the bar for a while... like the next 4 years! I know that God will provide, because like I keep saying, He didn't bring us this far to watch us crumble. And I know that if we're faithful in our giving, He will be faithful to bless us with what we need and more. It's so wonderful and comforting to have that promise to fall back on, and it's the only thing that's keeping me sane, really :) And I also know that Ben usually makes a good deal more than his base pay (which is what I used to create our budget) because he works a lot of overtime, so as long as the OT is still available, we'll have extra income. But we will DEFINITELY have to be cutting back. As Ben put it, from his oh-so-dramatic point of view, "we can't afford to have any fun" :) I don't think it's that bad, we just need to find inexpensive ways to have fun. Living so tightly won't be "fun", by any means, but we'll have plenty of our own happiness to enjoy. Just coming home to our own place and to each other every night sounds like an incredible amount of fun to me :)

This is a textbook, grade-A reality check for us, but it's putting us in the right frame of mind and preparing us for the challenges that we have ahead of us, which we may have under-estimated a little bit in the past. No one ever said married life would be easy, but with Ben, at least I know that it will never be dull or un-fulfilling. As my mom says, "Life is always an adventure with you, Ben" :) And that's what I have to look forward to! We'll have stories to tell about the days when we were poor, that's for sure.

Oh, and before I go, I got an acceptance letter from Drexel yesterday :) Absolutely not going there - I REALLY didn't like it when I visited - but it's still cool to get an acceptance from a medical school, regardless of which one it is. Yay!

Some news...

Anyone who reads my blog has probably already heard, but I got my first medical school acceptance last week while I was away interviewing in New York city :) University of Maryland School of Medicine! I can hold multiple acceptances until May 15th, so while I've accepted a spot in the class I don't HAVE to go there, but it certainly feels good to know that I'm definitely going to be a doctor, and that I definitely have the option of staying in Baltimore! I really did LOVE Maryland when I visited, so at least now I know that no matter what else happens, I can go to a school where I'll be really happy :)

I visited Mount Sinai and Columbia last week. Oh my. I've been to NYC before, but never while considering actually living there! It's such a different lifestyle. Even grocery shopping is different! I certainly wouldn't take a car - far too expensive to park it - so all of our travels home would have to be on the train, and all of our daily getting-around would require public transportation. I'm perfectly comfortable with the DC metro, but DC has the cadillac of metro systems compared to New York. We'd be living in University housing - both schools have couples apartment housing - since it's the only affordable way to live. We'd have to find Ben a job, which I fear might lead him back into the automotive industry (since there isn't much you can blow up in NYC without landing yourself in a little bit of hot water!). While I really believe that he'd ultimately be happier working on cars, he can't take on the tool debt again right now. Traffic is simply heinous, and if he had to commute out of the city to work he'd need to have a car, and we couldn't afford to keep a car there. There are many obstacles, not the least of which is coming to terms with the loss of family time. I think about Evan, who is 10 months old, and if we only saw him once a month or less he wouldn't be able to remember us from visit to visit. Leo would grow from 4 to 8 years old while we were gone - some of the most fun years, that we'd essentially miss. Lacy would grow from 10 to 14 - what an enormous change that we'd be missing! And Em will have a baby that we won't even get to know until it's 2 or 3 when we come home, and maybe Annie too. When I think about all that, I just can't do it.

But I LOVED Columbia. I think I loved it more than any school I've been to so far. It is just about everything I want in a medical school. In an urban area - lots of diversity in patients and cases. It has couples housing for Ben and I. Every student I met was incredibly enthusiastic and LOVED being there - they were stopping into the admissions office between classes, of their own free will, just to talk to us. Some even skipped class to continue telling us why they loved it so much. They have a few hours of lecture a day, plus small group and lab learning, and clinical exposure in the first year - students described the schedule as "low stress" and "easy to manage". All that, and it's the #11 medical school in the nation. It's the perfect combination of prestige and manageability. But it's in NY. Hopkins has the prestige and the location, but an incredibly daunting format for learning that doesn't seem the least bit "manageable" to me. Ugh. I really need to wake up one morning and find out that I was confused, and that Columbia is actually in Baltimore. Even Philly or DC would be better! I just don't think that I can give up what I have here to start an entirely new life in New York. And while Ben is being EXTREMELY supportive, I don't know that I can ask that of him. He really has surprised me - I don't know why it's surprising that he'd be so wonderful - but he keeps telling me "If we need to go to New York, then we'll go to New York. We'll make it work." We just need to do a lot of serious praying and get some real guidance.

I'm in the process of trying to like Hopkins, in the meantime. I loved Maryland, but if I could love Hopkins too, I'd feel much better about my future and it would be a much easier decision. Hopkins is instituting a new curriculum starting next Fall, and the students I talked to couldn't really answer my questions about it (since they've only experienced the old one). I really need to make sure I'm clear on it, because if the format is changing at all, that would really affect my decision. If they cut back on the intense lecturing, I could be much happier. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but we'll see. I'm writing to the admissions people to get some questions answered. Of course, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. I haven't gotten into Hopkins. In fact, I got wait-listed at UVA, which dashed my hopes a little. I'm hoping that was more an issue of state of residence than of qualifications. All the other schools I'm interested in are more competitive than UVA, so I'm trying not to worry too much but it's tough. Yikes.

It's about time for me to blow this taco stand (no, I didn't quit NIH to work at a taco stand, but I like that expression), so I'm gonna go. At the end of the day, I'm very relieved about getting into Maryland, but I just don't feel satisfied. I feel like maybe I'm being led somewhere else, which is awfully scary...

I'll warn you, this is going to be a mushy one.

What a sweet, wonderful man I have. I'll admit I was a little annoyed when he texted me yesterday at 5:39 telling me he had just walked in the door and was going to take a shower and come over, and I didn't see his face til nearly 7:30. Really, though, it's what he does, and I've come to expect it. He's slow. He gets it from his entire family - he can't help it. But I suspected that he was probably out combing through birthday cards to find the perfect one (or two, as it turned out). While he doesn't plan far enough in advance to buy a card before the day-of, he is very thoughtful in picking them out. I know this about him, and so I don't let the last-minute purchase bother me - it's what he does with everything, and it doesn't mean that he doesn't care. If he didn't care he'd run in, grab the first decent card he picked up, and run out. It actually means more to me that he was late because he spent so much time picking them out and writing wonderful notes in them about how excited he is about our life together. He knows I get irritated when he's late, but finding a meaningful card, to him, was worth pissing me off a little, which is actually sweet in a very backward, twisted way :) Sometimes the thoughtfulness of your significant other is obvious, sitting there on the surface and readily recognizable. Sometimes it's hidden, and if you're not careful you'll miss it or mistake it for something else. I'm glad we've had so much time to get to know each other so well, so that we can find those little things in each other :)

So anyway, when he finally did arrive, he had a dozen of the most beautiful red roses I think I've ever seen - they really were amazingly perfect - his two cards, and my birthday gifts. Dior J'Adore perfume, and a pair of GORGEOUS CZ drop earrings that I really wanted for the wedding but couldn't buy for myself. I'm so glad he bought them for me - it'll be that much more special to wear them on my wedding day :)

One of my cards was a "wife" card, and it was actually a perfect description of our relationship so far, even though we're not quite "there" yet. He said that there was another guy in the store with his little boy looking at birthday cards, who he eventually started talking to, and who told him it was his wife's birthday. Ben said "yeah, today is my wife's birthday too." When he told me that story, it wasn't like he said it because we're almost there so he just said "wife" for the hell of it, he told me the story as if it was something special that happened to him - like he had just really enjoyed the experience of referring to me as his wife, and this was the first time he had said to to someone and had it actually mean something (he and his immediate family have referred to me as "the wife" for several years now). Anyway, it warmed my heart a little, I'm not gonna lie :)

I know he's happy to be marrying me, but I love seeing little glimpses of the deeper meaning and the true excitement he feels. That more mature side of him that realizes the gravity of all this, that sees how important and how real it is. I think that our marriage class is really doing a number on him - it really has him thinking about this on a deeper level. It's doing the same thing to me. As if we weren't already deeply connected and committed to each other, this class is really helping us to take it to another level entirely. It's making us discuss and decide and learn and commit on all sorts of things, the most important of which being the quality and finality of our marriage. That we're both committed to more than a mediocre, functioning marriage - we're committed to an excellent one, and all the hard work it will require, every day of our lives. That we're both committed for life, with no exceptions at all, no matter what. Like, SERIOUSLY, no matter what. No matter what comes up, no matter how badly we might hurt one another, no matter how stressful life might get, no matter how convinced we might become one day that we made a mistake - God brought us here, and God does NOT want us to divorce, so God will always make a way for us if we'll let Him in. That's the bottom line, scary as it may seem and crazy as it may sound to other people. We've had the conversation, and that's what we've come to. And so, with that, I think I'll hereby remove the "D" word from my vocabulary.

So I think that concludes my mushy streak for today. I'm leaving for New York City this afternoon for my Mount Sinai and Columbia interviews (tomorrow and Friday), so I won't get to see Ben til Friday evening :'( I think that's part of my mushiness problem. We watched P.S. I Love You last night (I got to make him and my dad watch a chick flick since it was my birthday) and I listened to the soundtrack on the way in to work today, so I've just been in mushy-mode the entire day, being sad for myself and thinking about him. I listen to his heavy metal music when I miss him - is that weird? Either that or sappy love songs - the complete opposite, but they both help in their own way. One reminds me of him, and one reminds me of how wonderful love is and how lucky I am. There I go, swerving back into the mushiness! So anyway, my mom and step dad are coming with me to NY because no one wanted me to go alone, and they wanted to sight-see anyway (they both love NY). My mom is taking us out for dinner up there, since we both share the same birthday and haven't gotten to celebrate together yet. I should've bargained for a birthday shopping trip instead of dinner. Idiot. Oh well, I'm sure dinner will be delicious. Unfortunately my step dad (Tim) is a total meat-and-potatoes type, so we won't get to go anywhere exotic. I bet the sushi in NY is amazing. Hmmph.

It's just about time for me to head home from work to leave for our trip, so catch ya later!

I'll end with a shout-out to my fellow Bonner-phile and birthday buddy (yes, I share my birthday with TWO other people within my family)... HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!

Boredom & Desperation

In reality, there's really no reason I should feel "bored" at this particular point in my life (or so it would seem to the outside observer). I have a wedding coming up in less than 8 months, I'm a bridesmaid for one of my bridesmaids, I'm still interviewing for medical school and waiting for decisions, I'm working full time, and somehow my weekends are ALWAYS full, without exception. I guess maybe "bored" isn't the way to put it. Restless perhaps. The major wedding planning phase is essentially over, and it makes me sad :'( Being in the midst of wedding planning is addicting, and when your stash starts to run dry, withdrawal sets in, and you get desperate for more.

So, on that note, I've begun digging for details to attend to. Yesterday I toiled over my processional and recessional and reception introductions. I've gone back and forth several times about whether or not everyone should enter in pairs, who should walk with who, who will leave with who, who to introduce at the reception and with who... Don't make fun. These silly little details are really all I have. I started looking into prelude and ceremony music also for the string players. Sometimes I think classical guitar would be nice too...

I also addressed all my STDs (at least for everyone whose address I have) the other night. Again, desperate for something wedding-related to do. Ben really wanted to help - so sweet - so he stuffed envelopes. His handwriting is atrocious (literally, atrocious). I still need to finalize and print up the inserts for those, with the wedding website and the plea to book hotel rooms early :) That's really half the point of sending them - to get people to start booking so that our block of rooms can be expanded. And also to let people know that it's on a Friday so that if they need to make work arrangements in advance they'll have plenty of time. But I'm trying really hard not to send them until November so as not to appear too psycho about it - we'll see how long I can hold out :)

Next will be the tuxes and the flowers. The tuxes can really wait a while though. I'm trying to talk Ben into pinstripes :) I think that would be really cool and different. He's open to it - we'll have to see how he likes it in person. As for flowers, I'm pretty excited about that. I don't know why I haven't gotten together with the florist sooner! I have so many ideas but no clue how to fit them together, so I'm really excited to talk with someone who can put it all together for me and make some helpful suggestions. I guess I was originally waiting to have it all put together myself before I went in to the florist, but I'm sure it'll work out better if I go in there open to their ideas. I suppose we need to talk to the cake lady too. Again, I have some ideas, but it'll be fun to see where a designer can go with them. I'm clearly not a cake designer, though I try :)

I'm just so nervous to lock myself into anything because I know how indecisive I can be, but I think maybe it'll be a relief to put a few decorative things down on paper for real. I find myself a little stressed about the possibility of changing my mind and about not really knowing what it's all going to look like right now. Maybe if I start narrowing the possibilities by making a few decisions it'll seem less overwhelming. Things have already taken shape in my mind, but making it all real makes me quite nervous. I only get to do this once - what if these ideas are crap and I could totally think of something better? That's when I have to keep reminding myself of the big picture. It's the most decisive, wonderful, special day of my life thus far - we're literally committing to one another FOR LIFE - and then we get to throw a giant party and celebrate all night. When you look at it like that, who gives a crap about menu cards or centerpieces? You know, I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that this is all stuff I've written before... hmm.

UGH. It's approximately 25 degrees in my bay here in the lab, so my fingers are shrunken and my ring which normally fits perfectly is spinning and spinning around my finger as I type and driving me NUTS. Haha - just a few short months ago this was a problem I was just DYING to have! Poor me with my beautiful engagement ring.

On tap for next week is a federal holiday with my sweetie on Monday, my birthday on Tuesday (though it's a work day), another work day on Wednesday, and then a trip to NYC for two interviews (Mount Sinai on Thursday, Columbia on Friday). For now, my love is off in Ocean City with his friends for the weekend, so I'm heading to my friend Tara's housewarming party in Alexandria tonight, and then out to Andy & Laura's in Frostburg tomorrow with Em & Josh for yet another housewarming party (plus lots of belly-rubbing with baby Cooke #2 on the way). Ben will be back on Sunday morning for our marriage class (isn't he a sweetheart) and then Rick and Annie, his brother and sister-in-law, will be visiting for the Ravens game & dinner. I love staying busy :)

really? REALLY?!?!

So I had quite a surreal experience at Hopkins yesterday! I really enjoyed the day, got to meet lots of students and ask lots of questions, and my interviews went amazingly well. It was not at all what I expected! I went into it knowing that I really loved UMD, so I was probably making unfair comparisons all day (for instance, UMD hospital is newer and prettier than most parts of Hopkins, but the long-standing tradition and reputation of Hopkins sorta precludes much "newness" - of course its buildings are old!). I left at the end of the day essentially feeling excited about my interviews, but a little indifferent about the school itself. Now I'm a little lost!

It started with an orientation from the asst dean of admissions, who was very nice, normal and conversational. Then we went to lunch, where we were split into tables that each had a student and a faculty member to chat with, which was nice. I got to ask lots of questions and get some real insight on what it's like to be there and to learn there. Then our student took us on a tour, all over the place (it's a rather LARGE campus). We didn't see any patient areas, which was disappointing, but I guess most hospitals look the same in that regard. We saw their brand new simulation center (with full-equipped operating rooms, emergency rooms, clinic rooms, and lots of simulator dummies of every age that they can essentially simulate any medical problem on, realistically). We watched part of a simulation that a group of ER clerkship students was doing, which was pretty cool. They were all laughing about how clueless and confused they were, as was their professor, as they tried to treat the patient and communicate with the fake operating room people who would be taking the patient next. It was pretty interesting! We also got to see their medical school building and classrooms, but they're building a brand new medical education building that will open in Fall '09 (when I would potentially be starting), so that was a little irrelevant to me I guess. I'm glad they're building a new one - the old one was a little, well, OLD. We got to see the historic part of the hospital also, which was cool. You can't help feeling different when you're there - there's just something about being at Hopkins. All the history, all the discoveries and leaps in science that have been made there, all the respect it commands all over the world... it's hard to describe how I felt, and how I sensed that everyone else felt, while I was there. I could even see it in the students. They weren't super-serious or full of themselves or anything, I think they just seemed aware of where they were, and of how important the place is, and of the advantage that it's going to give them. They were all very nice, normal people, laughing with each other about funny clinical experiences and asking us interviewees lots of questions about ourselves and being very engaged in conversation.

After the tour, we came back to the admissions waiting area where more students were waiting for us - some to interview us, some to hang out and chat with us while interviews were going on. My first interview was a student. She was very nice and we had a great conversation, but she also seemed very aware of the importance of what she was doing and how important this was to me. Which was nice, considering my last student interview experience was not so great (at Drexel, they had random volunteer students who interviewed us DURING lunch - as in answering questions between bites - and mine was a first year. Really, she'd been there about a month and a half, so how much information is she going to be able to give me, and how much insight does she have on what it takes to do well in medical school, that she should be evaluating me?!?! I was pissed.). But yeah, at Hopkins my student interviewer basically asked me all the questions I felt most comfortable answering (the ones that I've gotten many times and have prepared well for), so I think it went very well.

So this is where my day got crazy, and where the title of this post came from. My next interviewer was on older woman who had attended Hopkins herself and was a retired pediatrician working for the admissions committee. She was SO sweet - I could tell by the way she greeted me that it would be a comfortable interview. I didn't know it would be quite as comfortable as it was, though! She started by asking me about why I want to practice medicine (another question I'm very well rehearsed in answering), about my extra-curriculars and about my family - again, all things I'm very comfortable taking about. I got lots of opportunities to deliver my best lines. Then she asked if there was anything else I'd like to tell her to help her make her case to the rest of the committee, because she was very satisfied and impressed with my application and very excited to present me to the committee and she wanted to know anything and everything there was to know that might help her (at which point my jaw hit the floor). She even gave me her e-mail address in case I thought of anything else later! So I explained that I think that I am by temperament a particularly caring, compassionate, empathetic person, which is something that I think is unique among people that come from my research-heavy, scientific background. She agreed and said that came through beautifully in my application because I "write extremely well" and I described several situations that illustrated that. When she asked if I had any questions for her, we ended up in a conversation about how her career evolved and how she balanced work and family (she has 3 children), which was very encouraging for me since that's by far my biggest concern going forward with all this. She said she'd e-mail me a link to the blog of a colleague of hers at Hopkins who has young children now and talks about being a mom and a doctor. So sweet! She said it would be "easy" for me, because I'm "organized, aggressive, a leader not a follower" and that I'd do wonderfully. That conversation ended with her adding "If... well I won't say 'if', WHEN you get in, we can discuss these things further" (By this point, my jaw is completely detached and laying there on the desk in front of me). I left her office - after profusely thanking her for her compliments and her insights - wondering "really? did that really just happen?" sorta like I felt when I got the interview invitation in the first place - like I must have been dreaming.

I was expecting these interviews to be more intense, more scrutinizing, and more uncomfortable than anything I'd experienced so far, but I was obviously very pleasantly surprised! It was unreal! I found myself in the middle of the interview, before she got into telling me how enthused she was about my application, thinking about how important it was and how these moments were determining my future in SO many ways... and no sooner had I had those thoughts, then she completely threw me for a loop. Apparently I had already done what I needed to do. Looking back, working so hard for this really sucked, but I never thought it would actually be enough to get me here. Not that I'm in yet - I have a very enthusiastic advocate on the committee, but there are lots of other people that are just as qualified that the entire committee will have to choose between. But at least I know I have a legitimate shot at this. God is good, isn't He?!

As for my feelings about the school itself, I left yesterday still a little unsure of how I felt. I wasn't blown away but I didn't dislike it either - I was hoping to have strong feelings one way or the other. It's in a crappy part of the city, but then again most medical schools are - Maryland is in a nicer area but there are still not-so-nice streets nearby. It's VERY lecture-heavy, which one student actually did criticize - it doesn't seem like they care much about small group learning, which UMD puts more emphasis on (though I'm not sure if small-group learning would be best for me - I do tend to do well with lecture learning, but 5 to 8 hours of lecture a day seems a little daunting to me!). They calculate rent costs for your first year on a room in their residence hall which is about $450 a month, so the living expenses allowance for first year is quite low (much higher at UMD across all 4 years). That's essentially all borrowed money, so taking out less for living expenses is probably better in the long run, but if Ben and I need it to stay afloat, I'd like to have the option! So there are a few things that are holding me back from loving it. I just didn't feel as excited about Hopkins as I did about Maryland. It seems absurd to choose UMD over Hopkins if I were to get into both, but I don't know... it just might be better for me. It's going to be a really tough choice if I'm forced to make a choice. I'll be doing lots of praying.

I'm getting MARRIED!

Every now and then it hits me, just like it did in the very beginning - we're seriously getting married. For real. We're doing this! FINALLY! Not that I really would've had it any other way. I mean, I still feel young anyway, and I'm so glad we went through being away from each other during college. It sucked, but it was great for our relationship - I think we learned a lot. Speaking of learning a lot, our marriage prep class has been AWESOME so far! It's bringing up some topics that we hadn't discussed yet (either because we hadn't thought of them or because we knew they'd be ugly so we avoided them!), which is really helping us to work through some things that may otherwise have become problems. We're learning the well-defined husband and wife roles that God lays out in the Bible, so we're starting out with realistic expectations - I know what's expected of me and what I should expect of him, and vice versa, and we're not just accountable to each other in fulfilling those roles, but to God too. We're just learning so much and uncovering new things - it's been great. We really like the Pastor who is teaching the course, too, so he may end up performing our ceremony for us. I think we'll feel very comfortable and close with him and his wife by the end of the class, and it'll be a much more personal choice for us than the Pastor that we were originally thinking of using (who is also a great guy, we just don't know him all that well). This class just has me so excited for the potential of our marriage. We're starting off from such a wonderful place together, and we're doing all that we can to prepare ourselves to actively work on making our marriage the best it can be for us and for our kids... I just think we have so much going for us and I'm so excited to start it all with him! There will be so many obstacles and stressors and disappointments and arguments, but I think we're off to a great start in preparing for them. It feels so good :)

This week I'm focusing on preparing for the big Hopkins interview on Thursday, and getting the house together for our engagement party on Saturday with our wedding party and close family. It should be a great opportunity for everyone to meet each other and hopefully to make the wedding activities SLIGHTLY less awkward ;) It's always strange to walk down the aisle with someone you just met the night before at the rehearsal! Ben and I are going through old pictures and mementos for a collage that we're putting together for the party, and it's so amazing how far we've come! We looked like babies! It was so sweet to look through notes I wrote him and little booklets and things that I made for him - to see all the times that I promised him that I'd love him forever, told him that I couldn't wait to spend my life with him, called him my "hubby"... and now it's all coming true! So to all you pessimists who laughed at us - THE JOKE'S ON YOU!!! HAha gotta love it :)

As for Hopkins... I guess I just want it to be over with. I'm stressed, but not really. I don't know. I feel at peace about it - kinda like whatever happens, happens. I met a kid at my University of Maryland interview (LOVED that place, by the way!) who had an interview at Hopkins, and he said it wasn't bad at all - very conversational, like most of them have been for me - so that's encouraging. I've just been doing my research on the school, writing out my responses to common questions so that I have something to get me started (besides "um"), and trying to relax about it. I'm so glad that I loved Maryland, because it takes some of the pressure off of this Hopkins interview. I was so afraid that I'd hate UMD and then be left with either getting into Hopkins or being forced to leave Baltimore - neither of which would be easy! At least now I know that there's a place other than Hopkins where I can get the whole package, including the closeness to family :) I'm just going into it with all the confidence I can muster, and with the attitude that this is my opportunity to see if Hopkins is for me or not. Maybe it isn't. Most of the people I work with are telling me "If you get into Hopkins, you go. You have to." But I'm a little concerned that the environment is going to be too intense and competitive, and I don't want any unnecessary additional stress in my life! I'll have the same degree no matter where I go, and Maryland is the better place to do my residency anyway (I'm interested in Emergency, which UMD excels at between its ER and Shock Trauma) so it's not like I need to go to Hopkins because I want to get into a Hopkins residency. I've actually heard some negative things about their Emergency program. But anyway, if I get in that's awesome, if I don't then it just means that it's not the place where God wants me to be, which means I'd be happier elsewhere. It'll all be fine :)

Today was the day...

I'll always remember today. September 22nd 2008 will forever be the day that the greatest medical school in all the land said "we kinda like you". That's right folks, I got an interview invitation from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine today. HOLY SHIT. I'm freakin out a little!!! Are they serious? I'm just waiting for the "oops, sorry, our bad" e-mail telling me it was all a mistake! I can't believe this. I found out 2 and a half hours ago and my heart is still thumping! This is outrageous. Incredible. Amazing. Unbelievable. Whew! They're giving me a chance to go to freaking HOPKINS. I think I need to process this information some more.

In other news, I went to Gettysburg this past weekend for Alumni/Homecoming weekend (also known as the first official post-graduation opportunity to go back to school and meet up with your old friends at the bar...). I met up with Janelle and Leanne and went out and had a blast - went to our favorite bar and went out for our favorite pizza afterward, tried to sleep through the wierd conversations in the next room, the strange noises coming from the drunk asses in the hallway, and random people showing up in our faces in the middle of the night. Ahhh, I miss college :) Went to breakfast the next morning, but had to head home before the actual Homecoming stuff started, because we had to get to Ray and Shannon's wedding!

Ray is one of Ben's groomsmen who he works with at the proving grounds. It was so cool to be at a wedding now that we're engaged :) It was at Cloisters Castle in Lutherville - SO beautiful. And if you remember Saturday, it was PERFECT weather for an outdoor wedding. We had a lot of fun, and kept track of good ideas we liked (Ben thinks we need to release doves at our wedding now). But yeah, as soon as "Canon in D" started playing, I was no more good. I felt bad, but all I could think about was the fact that that's going to be ME next! It made it all a little more real, watching it happening in front of me. Crazy. Shannon was gorgeous - her gown was amazing and suited her so perfectly! She really did a great job - she made a lot of things herself and did most of her own planning. It's funny to go to a wedding with a more concrete idea of how much things cost - it gives you such an appreciation for all the hard work and money people pour into these things, and you appreciate a lot of little details that you might not notice otherwise. So anyway, yeah, it was tons of fun :)

Ben is about to get home, and I'm about to break the big Hopkins news to him, so I'm going to quit writing for now :) He's going to flip - he wants me to stay in Baltimore SO badly (as do I), and he knows this is my top choice for making that happen. I can't wait to tell him!

And then medical school took over

YAY Myrtle Beach!!!

Vacation was GREAT! We seriously did NOTHING all week - it was awesome. Got up around 10 or 10:30 every day (of our own will, not by the force of an alarm clock), ate a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed a cup of coffee, slathered on sunscreen (didn't take long for us to need the tough stuff - we were on SPF 70 by day 3!), and walked across the street to the beach. Enjoyed some combination of reading Glamour and/or wedding magazines, swimming, strolling, baking, or just sitting and people-watching until at least 4:30 every day, with a break for lunch sometime where we'd run up to our room, pack sandwiches and run back down to eat them on the beach. Actually, there was very little "running" involved. I tried running on the beach in the morning of our first day, which left me with strange blisters on my "index" toes (I don't know how else to describe them - the ones next to your big toes I guess) and aching calf muscles. In the interest of letting my blisters heal (they hurt like a bitch, believe it or not!) I let the next few days go by without running, and before I knew it I was chowing on pizza and Maggie Moo's and chocolate fondue (Yes, Melting Pot!) for a week with no exercise. Ew. Oh well - it's back to South Beach after the family picnic tomorrow (where I'll do my best, but I know I'll have little control over what's available to eat). Anyway, back to my daily va-cay itinerary (which I know you're all WAY into right now), around 4:30 when Ben's mom had reached the brink of heat exhaustion without the umbrella (the umbrella guy took it back at 4 every day) we'd head back upstairs, take our showers, make dinner or head out to eat, and then hit Barefoot Landing (aka the land of junk stores that you can't resist going into) for some evening shopping. We were always in bed around 11, since I'm just old and need lots of sleep, and Ben literally spent the ENTIRE day, EVERY day, in the water fighting a losing battle against the waves with his trusty body board. He did have to take a brief break at lunchtime to eat and stand there indignantly while I re-slathered him with sunscreen. Yeah, I'm the sunscreen natzi. Despite the fact that I lay in tanning beds from time to time, I refuse to stand idly by while my groom-to-be slowly amasses the genetic mutations necessary for a future date with metastatic melanoma. So anyway, we had a lovely vacation :)

My sexy husband on the beach (he'll kill me if he finds out I put this up!)

While I was away, though, I got THREE more interviews! I can't tell you how psyched I am :) I checked my e-mail in the hotel lobby twice during the week, and I got invitations from Drexel and Maryland. I wasn't super thrilled about Drexel - another school that's farther away than I'd like to end up - but I had to fight to contain my excitement about Maryland (there was some dude sitting at the computer next to me). I'm so excited to get an interview near home! I've done A LOT of thinking about this whole thing ever since we got engaged, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I really want to stay as close to home as possible. It's going to be tough enough to start our newlywed lives as I start medical school, with all the demands it will place on my time and my energy, and the whole thing really doesn't need to be aggravated by uprooting us from what's familiar, and from our families. I can't make big name medical schools more important than my marriage - I made that choice when I said yes. That being said, the third interview offer I got is the biggest deal so far... I returned home to a letter from none other than the 11th ranked school in the country and the best school I've heard from so far, Columbia! I don't mean to be braggy, I'm just really excited because it gives me more hope for the big one (yeah, Hopkins). It's another one in NYC, so it's not so much that I'm excited because I want to go there - I'm just thrilled to hear from them because I feel like it's one step closer to Hopkins. It introduces an interesting question though - one that I've been worried about ever since I started this whole process. What happens if I get into Columbia and Maryland, but not Hopkins? Not that rankings are all that important, but to give you some idea (since not all of you are really familiar with what med schools are better than others - I know I had no clue til I started this process, except for the obvious ones), Columbia is ranked 11th, and MD is ranked 43rd. I only hear great things about Maryland, but knowing that makes it tough. Even UVA is ranked 23rd - it's up there but also far away. It's tough with Maryland because I feel confident about the possibility of getting in there, particularly since I'm in-state (we get priority), but it's not one of the best schools I applied to. I'll be doing A LOT of praying about all this. I just need to focus on trying to listen to God's voice in all this - Ben and I will be happiest where God wants us to be, not necessarily where Ben or I think that we'll be happiest. I hope that I can convince Ben of that though, no matter what our situation ends up being. It will definitely be our first major challenge as a married couple if we have to move away - just coming to the place where we can both genuinely trust that God has our best interest in mind and that this is where He wants us to be.

I'm getting scared as the reality gets closer... actually traveling to New York City to interview. It's not just an imaginary scenario anymore like it was when I was filling out applications. I just have to remember that it's only by the grace of God that I've gotten this far - nothing that I've accomplished could've happened without His hand pushing me and guiding me and giving me the strength to make it through - and He didn't get me this far just to abandon me. And He didn't drop this engagement in our laps just to watch us fail, either. That's one thing I remember very clearly from that night when we decided we were getting married - the pure clarity I felt about it, and how obvious it felt that it was God's perfect plan come to life, right there in Ben's kitchen. I can't describe it other than describing the sequence of events, but I know how it felt, and I know how certain I am that we're doing God's will in all this. Having that to fall back on keeps me sane.

So, in the midst of all of the engagement excitement, I've been pulled back down into the real world as the medical school dream inches closer to reality. Now it's time to focus on making the two work together. On that note, we're starting our Preparation for Marriage class at my mom's church in Gaithersburg tomorrow :) Perfect timing! Followed by a not-so-short jaunt out past Hancock to Berkeley Springs (somewhere in Western MD or WV) for Ben's family picnic. I hope it's not too hot! In any case, I should get on to bed. Not that I've unpacked anything. Don't you hate unpacking? Ew. Goodnight!

UVA Interview!

Yesterday was my UVA interview :) It went very well. It was a very relaxed, laid-back day. There were 6 of us there to interview, and we had a group orientation and a talk from the director of the admissions committee about the school, then lunch with 2 fourth-year students, a tour of the medical center and the school, and then two half-hour interviews. I got lots of good info and it gave me a better idea of the sorts of details that I should be looking for when I'm checking out schools. The interviews themselves were very conversational - I didn't feel intimidated or anything - and I think I delivered my answers well, without a lot of "um"s and "uh"s :) I liked a lot of things about it, though coming from little bitty Gettysburg, I have to say I was a little overwhelmed by the size of UVA. It really is a small city, with its own bank branches and churches and delis and police force, etc. SO big. I'm sure that I'd get used to it though, like anything else. There were several perks that got me excited about the school, but I kept having to remind myself of how far away I was from home! It was good to find out, though, that there are several defense contractors and several Northrop Grummans in the area, so if I absolutely HAD to go there, at least we know that Ben wouldn't have too much trouble finding a job. There are certainly drawbacks, like the parking situation, the cost ($42,650 a year, just in tuition and fees!), the distance from home (about 3 hours), the traveling to other hospitals for clinical clerkships (Fairfax, Roanoke, and others)... but it seemed like a very laid-back, pleasant place to go to medical school, with lots of camaraderie among the students and the faculty, lots of regard for the quality of life of the students (they're not out to drive their students to the end of their pitiful ropes, it seems), and they're building a new medical school building too. Anyway, there's a lot to think about, and I don't plan on ending up there unless everything else I visit totally sucks, but at least now I have some idea of what to expect on other interviews and what to look for in other schools - something to compare to.

Next up is Mount Sinai, but that's not til October 16th, so I won't worry about that one for a while. My boss finally submitted his letter of recommendation last week, so all of the schools that were waiting around for his letter can start evaluating my application now that it's complete. I'm hoping to start hearing from other schools soon, hopefully within the next few weeks. I got all of my other materials submitted in freaking mid-JULY, so my application SHOULD have been at the top of everyone's stack, but I'm sure that the lateness of this letter set me back a bit. Which is irritating, since med school admissions are rolling, so the earlier you interview the better chance you have of being accepted. In any case, I won't get interviews everywhere (at least I hope not - I can't afford to travel to all of them!) - it's so competitive. For example, I found out yesterday that UVA gets about 4300 applications per year, interviews about 500, and admits about 250 to fill a class of 142. YIKES. I'm just dying to hear from Hopkins, Maryland and Georgetown. I need to know that I have a chance at at least ONE of them! I just got an e-mail from G-town saying my application is now being reviewed, so let's all pray for a quick response on that one! One of my friends here in the lab applied there and already got an interview and we have fairly comparable applications, so I have hope!

No big news on the wedding front. We booked our string trio for the ceremony - got a pretty good deal so I'm excited about that :) And I've decided to be a bridezilla and have my bridesmaids dye their shoes to match their dresses (evil, isn't it?). I just can't bring myself to be satisfied with any other color combo. I've tried! I guess I should send an e-mail about that before you all read it second-hand on my blog!

Ben and I are leaving for VA-CAY on Saturday! WAHOO! We're going to Myrtle Beach with Darlene and Rich - did I mention that already? Anyway, we'll get back into the wedding planning mode when we get back. I plan on setting up our tastings and our cake design meeting and stuff in the next few weeks. The FUN stuff :) And our STDs have arrived, so we'll be sending those out relatively soon. They don't really need to go out til December - that would be 6 months - but I'll probably send them in mid-October. If I can hold myself back that long. I just want the world to know! Speaking of which, our engagement announcement ran in the Carroll County Times last Sunday :) So cute!

Alright, back to work.

Color Schemes

Let me just say, color schemes are a major pain in the ass! I had all these modern, trendy ideas for color schemes, and then Ben fell in love with the terracotta room at Turf Valley, and now our reception is going to be held in this peachy-golden ballroom that is just completely saturated in warm colors, warm lighting... it's absolutely STEEPED in warmth. Sounds cozy, and it is, but try decorating it! You can't do a nice clean, fresh color scheme like light green and white, because it isn't a fresh, clean setting. You need a blank canvas for that. You can't do bright colors, because the room itself is already so committed to its tone that anything that doesn't fall within the existing color family will look ridiculous. And pale or pastel colors would just wash right into the background - the lighting just doesn't leave room for them. Which basically leaves me with deep, rich colors that accent the existing palette. Like burgundy. Which is about the only thing I can think of that works, so here we are. As for an accent color, I'm stuck between yellow and green. For either color, it will be very muted (not bright) but not pale. I'm planning on yellow at the moment. It seems to blend into that room best. I'm hoping it doesn't end up with a McDonald's, ketchup and mustard look :) I'm just going to have to stick with true burgundy and not venture too far toward the red side!

And for those of you who will be receiving a save-the-date in the not-too-distant future, don't expect it to be burgundy or yellow. It isn't. We don't exactly subscribe to the whole matchy-stationery thing. No one has been to our wedding yet, so they don't know that the STDs don't match the color scheme (unless of course they read my blog... oops). I did want my stationery to give people a feel for the overall tone that we're going for - the whole elegant-casual thing - and I think they accomplish that perfectly. Which is why we love them :)

In essentially unrelated news, I'm taking Ben out for a surprise tonight for his birthday (which is on Labor Day). I can't risk him finding out early, so I won't reveal it now. I will say, however, that I'm more than a little irritated at the rain! I'm also throwing a party for him on Saturday evening which should be a good time :) Anyway, more about how all that goes in a later post. For now, I finally have a 20-minute break in this protocol so I can go eat some lunch!

How it's going, plus exciting news!

Oh my ! It's been 10 days! That's a little ridiculous - I apologize. Here's what's new. We've officially decided on Turf Valley. Despite anything negative I may have written about how I felt about the place, when we finally went back for one last look, I had a different perspective. There are some things that I have found are really important when you're planning a wedding, and peace of mind is one of them. Peace of mind about your budget, about how well your guests will be taken care of even when you're not around, about how easy or difficult it will be to work with your venue/caterers... I had no confidence in Kent Manor. I had a very negative experience with their catering sales manager who was my contact person. I never felt like she cared about us or was interested in selling us on Kent Manor. I always felt like one of many business propositions. And there were lots of concessions we'd have to make there (crappy hors d'oeuvres, beer and wine bar, no possibility for a longer reception, no shuttle for guests...), though we still would've been stretching our budget to make it work. It was going to be a very stressful way to go. I'm SO happy about our final decision. It's going to be beautiful, our guests are going to love it and be well taken care of and well fed, the hotel is on-site so no one has to drive anywhere afterward if they don't want to, we can have our full open bar, we may be able to swing an extra hour for the reception, and it's all within our budget (well, except for the extra hour, which Ben is working overtime for!). It's very exciting :)

I'm working on decorating ideas and finding cheaper ways to do things. We ordered our Save-the-Dates (or, as Em likes to say, our STDs) and also ordered a few little accessories like toasting flutes, our unity candle, etc. OH, and I decided on a bridesmaid dress, finally. I was also able to keep that within a reasonable budget for my girls, and I think it's going to be beautiful! Things are definitely progressing. I'm working on finding less expensive string performers for the ceremony, we're now in contact with the pastor who is going to perform it for us, our guest list is right where we want it... I'm going to get everything done and then be bored for the next 8 months! It's really only been a little over a month and things are already coming together so quickly.

Another piece of news, which I hope it's ok to publish in my blog :) One of my bridesmaids is now a bride too! Sam and Todd are tying the knot, so now we have double the work to do! Their wedding will be next fall, so I'll have time to recover from mine and start being a better bridesmaid for her before it's time for the big day. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to give her as much of my time and effort as I'd like to be able to, given that I'm doing my own planning and my own DIY projects and such, but since she's doing it later in the year, I think it's going to work out great :) I think we'll just end up doing a lot of projects together, a little for me and a little for her, as we go along. It's already so fun to have someone else who's in the same mind-set as I am (always wanting to talk weddings, which I already feel like I do too much of with other people who are probably getting annoyed with me!). I've never felt like a resource for wedding knowledge before, but there I was yesterday, sitting in her living room answering questions all afternoon - SO much fun! It's going to be great to go through it all together, and we'll always share the memory of planning our weddings together.

Well, I'm at work so I really should be doing science. OH, speaking of science (sort of), I got another interview at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City! I don't really want to end up in NYC, but Mt Sinai is one of the best schools that I applied to, so it gives me hope for some of the other great schools on my list (cough*HOPKINS*cough) :) Alright, for real now, see ya!

A Big Day...

Tomorrow, we have our official visit to Kent Manor to speak with the catering sales manager, do an official tour, and possibly sign a contract. After asking nicely, I got them to come down on the site fee and throw in the champagne toast for free, putting it within reach of our budget. It's down to Kent Manor and Turf Valley. All this week we've been set on Kent Manor, but now I'm starting to have lingering thoughts of Turf Valley and its pretty weeping willows and the outrageous cocktail hour. Kent Manor is on the water (not on the bay side of the island, on Thompson's Creek) and the Garden House where we'd have the reception is gorgeous. Columns, an elevated dance floor, gold chiavari chairs... BUT, the hotel won't hold everyone (and is probably way too pricey, being an historic manor house), it doesn't include our cake, we'll have to spend more money on hors d'oeuvres, dinner will be buffet-style rather than seated, it's farther away and across the bay bridge which makes visiting, booking other vendors (flowers, cake, etc.) more difficult... This is an extremely difficult decision, I have to say. It's not at all like I thought. I was hoping for a magic light bulb moment. So anyway, Saturday should be a big day. Hopefully we'll make a decision.

In other news, we've booked our DJ. He's THE GREATEST. If you don't know him yet, you'll love him. He did Em's wedding also, so we've already had a full-length demo, and we visited him on Monday and he hung around with us for over 2 hours discussing our music and doing demos of the cocktail hour, dinner, and dancing stuff. It's going to be an amazing party - I hope you all are ready! It got me so pumped for the reception! I've been so focused on the details, but sitting down with him was so much fun and it reminded me that this is really supposed to be a celebration where we all get together and have FUN (not just stand in awe of the scenery, admire the pretty centerpieces and food displays, and eat)!!!

In still other news, I got my first medical school interview offer at the University of Virginia (in Charlottesville). Not my top choice, but it's a start - at least I'm getting interviews! I'll be going down there September 3rd, just before we leave for vacation. Oh, by the way, Ben and I are going to Myrtle Beach with his mom and step-dad September 6th-13th. I'm SO excited to get away and relax! Starting work has been rough, after my slack-ass senior year of college and several weeks of sitting on my ass being sick, so I'm definitely ready for a break! I can't wait to go re-live senior week in my mind :)

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!

HE PROPOSED!!!

We spent the day yesterday (Saturday the 9th) making our last few site visits and seriously discussing our options for a venue. We went out to the swing in his backyard to relax for a bit and enjoy the beautiful spring-like weather, where I proceeded to bug him about how badly I wanted my ring for a while :) We joked about it, he laughed at me a lot, and he was being particularly affectionate, which was surprising given the topic of conversation (usually he gets ticked at me when I bring up the ring). That was my first clue, but I've learned to stop getting excited at the first sign of abnormal behavior lately. My mom is leaving for Disney World today and I'm the dogsitter, so I had to go over to her house to get the last-minute instructions for the dogs. Ben said he didn't feel too great and wanted to stay home and lay around while I went to my mom's. So I left, and he set his plan into motion.

I spent about a half an hour at my mom's, and then she decided that we should take all the Pampered Chef stuff that had come in (from our party last week) to Ben's house for his mom, aunt, sisters, etc. who ordered, and suggested that she come with me to pick up a suitcase from my house - she had run out while packing. So she followed me in her car, and I proceeded past Ben's road to go to my house first and grab the suitcase. She pulled over, called me, and said "You need to come back. We need to go to Ben's first." Another clue that I was being stalled. So I didn't ask questions. After unloading at Ben's (and noticing that he wasn't there!), my mom decided that we should go get ice cream. To which I responded "Mom, I'm on South Beach. I can't have ice cream!" So we went to Rita's, where they usually have a sugar-free flavor or two. She got a phone call from what she claimed was her mother-in-law, who was on her way over for their trip to Disney. Made sense, but after having sat around lazily eating our italian ice for about 10 minutes, it was suddenly time to go after that phone call. Hmm. As we pulled up to my Dad's, supposedly to pick up a suitcase, I noticed something pink on the door. My suspicions were confirmed :) So here's how it went from my perspective...

On the door were two pink post-its. One said "Follow the notes in numerical order" and the other said "Kitchen first". I opened the door to find a trail of red rose petals all over my house :) The first note in the kitched read "1. You're the best thing that has ever happened to me". The trail led me to the dining room, to find "2. You truly are a message from God". Next, up the stairs to the end of the hallway (where I expected to find him hiding in my room, but I was wrong) "3. I love you more than life itself" and "After reading this note head back downstairs and outside on the deck". On the slider to the deck was "4. I will love you forever and always!" and "Keep following the petals". I thought I'd find him on the deck, but I was wrong again. I found "5. You're my angel" and a trail down the stairs. There he sat, in what he knows is my favorite outfit, on the wooden swing beneath my deck, ring box in-hand :) Of course, I immediately started welling up and had to hug and kiss him a few times before I could sit down. He sat me down, told me there was no one else he could imagine loving for the rest of his life, and asked me to marry him. To which I replied "Absolutely!" And there was much crying, kissing, hugging, and general rejoicing :)

I'm so glad that he came up with a sweet, thoughtful plan and made it a special moment for us that we'll always remember. It was an incredible moment, actually being proposed to - it was about so much more than the ring. It felt so much more real than I ever could have imagined, and so profoundly important. Truly the most important moment of my life to date. There aren't many moments that truly change your life forever, but that was one of them. Not that we weren't getting married before that happened, but I really FELT it when that happened. It made this whole thing more real - it made me start putting myself in my visions of the wedding, rather than just picturing the scenery and the faceless figures standing up there. It's really happening, and I couldn't be more certain that he is the one and only man that it was ever supposed to be.

And now, the long-anticipated ring shots...

I could do some serious damage with that thing. It sits up very high on my finger! And remember, Mom Mom's diamond in the middle - how sweet is that? Couldn't be more perfect, if you ask me :) These pictures don't really do it justice, in terms of its "bling" factor - it's extremely sparkly - but you'll see it in person eventually, I'm sure!

I hate decisions

Decisions, decisions. We got an estimate from Kent Manor today, which is just a bit too high. It's a little nicer than Silver Swan, and its only about $400 more (since I found out about an extra service fee at Silver Swan that I didn't include in my original calculations - LAME), but right now it's just looking like we can't afford anything by the water. I never did post any Kent Manor pics, so here's a few...

At either place, we'd be stretching our budget to the max (plus breaking out the plastic, most likely), and though they each have great caterers, we wouldn't be getting their best stuff (next to nothing for the cocktail hour, chicken or steak for dinner, no cocktails, no champagne toast...) and we'd have to bring in our own cake. Kent Manor really is very nice, but I just don't think we can justify it. Particularly given our other options (eh hem, Turf Valley), which give us so much more for a fraction of the cost. I actually did a comparison today to see how much it would cost us if we got everything that Turf Valley includes at Silver Swan - it came out to over $19,500. Holy Crap. That was a bit of an awakening!

We still haven't seen Stone Manor yet, but it's going to be too pricey also. Again, just out of reach. The venue and catering alone fit within our budget, but we'd have to provide our own alcohol there, and the cost of that would put us way over. Plus a cake. Maybe I can get them to come down on the $4000 site fee since we're doing it on a Friday. I really like that they have an outdoor tent for the ceremony :) I don't think we're going to go look at Musket Ridge as I had originally planned. They don't have time to see us this weekend, and after pricing it out, it looks like it'll be too high anyway. And I really don't need to love another place. I scheduled an appointment with the DJ that we want on Monday, so that we're forced to pick a place and a date this weekend in order to book him.

And yeah, still nothing on the ring front. He's playing Rock Band at the moment. And we need to make a quick run to the store and then watch a few episodes of Six Feet Under and cuddle :) So, see ya!