Another action-packed weekend!

First things first - our engagement photo session was awesome! This lovely work of art is just one of the 167 shots that our photographer, Jamie Roberts, took for us on Friday evening at Turf Valley. It was 70 degrees and sunny, not a cloud in the sky! We shot from about 5:45 til 6:30, so the sun was starting to come down which made for some beautiful lighting. I can't say enough about what a GREAT guy Jamie is - he made this extra trip out to Turf Valley and took all these photos for us for nothing. We had such a GREAT time shooting with him, and getting to see a little preview of his work before the wedding is so cool, and so reassuring. Not that I ever questioned what he could do - I've seen his portfolio and his work is what drew us to him in the first place - but you always wonder how YOU will look in your wedding photos. Now I know that he knows how to make us look good :) He posted a few others on Facebook which I loaded into Picasa, so if you're interested... http://picasaweb.google.com/jennarenee17/EngagementSession#

After that fun-filled beginning to our weekend, we drove out to Ikea in White Marsh in hopes of snagging some barstools that were on HEFTY sale Friday only ($40 a piece, down from $120 a piece!), but of course they were gone long before we ever got there. So we spent $300 on a dresser instead ;) I mean, we couldn't drive all the way out there for NOTHING, could we? We needed it anyway and would've bought it eventually, and now we'll have something to put in our empty-yet-beautifully-painted bedroom :) We also got a cool idea for our bed conundrum... our "bed conundrum" being the fact that we have a metal bed frame and a mattress/boxspring set, but kinda wanted to actually buy a "real" bed, but everything at Ikea requires buying the wooden slats and not using the boxspring, and the bed we like at Crate & Barrel (apart from being pricey) is a platform bed which also doesn't fit a boxspring and will wear out our mattress more quickly. So we thought we'd just get a headboard and call it good, since Ben doesn't want a footboard anyway (being 6'4" and needing his stretching space), but then I feel like, why am I spending $150 on a hunk of wood to sit behind our bed? I could almost buy a whole bed for that at Ikea. But we saw a bed on display at Ikea the other night with curtain panels hanging behind it... and I thought to myself, "there's a creative and stylish solution..." and surprisingly enough, Ben agreed! We looked around at Ikea a bit and couldn't find anything that was QUITE perfect, but I have hope for the idea itself. What we'd really like to use instead of a traditional fabric curtain panel is a few of those screen-looking window coverings that they make now with graphic designs on them. So we'll see. Sorry I still haven't posted any pics of the apartment progress. Part of me is still holding out for rooms to actually be finished and put together before the big reveal :)

As for the rest of our weekend, we left Saturday morning for Deep Creek (Oakland, super-Western Maryland, almost West Virginia... whatever you want to call it - it's about as far as you can drive from where we live and still be in MD) to visit Ben's grandmother for her 91st birthday. This time we took Frank with us (Ben's dad and her son) since he hasn't been able to go out there since before his stroke. All 5 of us (me, Ben, Frank, Em and Josh) piled into Em's Subaru Forester, which actually accommodated us all in relative comfort for the 3 hour drive. It was an emotional reunion for Frank and his mom. Physically, she's actually getting around better than he does - she still has her pantyhose and high heels on with her painted toe nails and finger nails, lipstick and jewelry. She's pretty amazing! The only way she really shows her age is in her lack of short-term memory (you have the same few conversations over and over most of the time, which is fairly typical of someone her age), but apart from that, she seems to be on top of things! We spent several hours visiting with her on Saturday, and by the time we left, Frank's three brothers were all there too - I think she really enjoyed the little "family reunion" and having all her boys together :) We left around 5 to go check into our hotel (Frank stayed at his mother's with his brother Max who had been there for the week taking care of her), and then met up with our friends the Cookes (who live out there in Frostburg) at Uno for dinner. It was SO great to see them, and their girls are just precious! Lucy is almost 2 now, and incredibly charming with her bright red pigtails and bubbly personality :) Molly is still an infant - born around the end of February - but was just a doll for the entire meal. She got a little fussy when she was hungry, but once her belly was full again, she just took in the scenery from her seat or whoever's arms she was in at the moment and visited with everyone and never made a peep! What a sweet baby :) Lucy was too funny - it took her a few minutes to warm up, but once she had gotten comfortable, she was coloring with us and sitting in our laps and jumping from person to person just playing and giggling! We had a great time - I'm so glad we got the chance to see them while we were out there. For the rest of the evening, we played poker and laughed and had a few beers in our hotel room! Good times!

Sunday morning we got up relatively early (for us anyway) and hit up Sheetz for some breakfast and coffee, and then headed over to Grandmom's to visit for a few more hours before it was time to head home. Our visit was cut a little short when Frank decided he was ready to go, and that he was going with his brother Max, so we all ended up heading out just before noon. It was nice to have a little extra space in the Subaru since Max was willing to take Frank home, and we basically napped on and off all the way back to Eldersburg, since Josh so graciously did all the driving for us :) When we got home, we got to spend some time with Ben's mom who had been in Tennessee since Easter weekend and had gotten home Saturday night while we were gone. We just relaxed and chatted and had some pizza - the usual Sunday at Ben's house :) Except we were minus Amberly and the kids, because Evan seems to be coming down with an ear infection and Amberly hasn't been feeling great either (which is why they weren't able to join us this weekend). Poor Evie had a 101 fever last we heard yesterday evening :'( Praise God that Chris is off this week and will be there to help her manage the kids! One sick baby is bad enough, but apparently Leo was starting to sniffle too. You're in my prayers!!!

Speaking of sickness, what I was desperately trying to attribute to allergies seems to be turning into something. I've just had lots of chest congestion and crackling - I can just feel the mucus rumbling around in there sometimes - and now my throat is getting sore from the coughing. And speaking of allergies, I had a TERRIBLE reaction to Ben's cat on Friday evening. On Easter I had an itchy/red/watery/swollen eyes reaction sitting out in their dining room where the cat usually hangs out, which was concerning to me since we'd like to have pets, but that was nothing compared to Friday evening. My right eye nearly swelled shut. Ugh. So I've been looking more into low-shedding or hypo-allergenic dog breeds (since I don't think there's really any such thing as a hypo-allergenic cat, aside from a hairless one... ew). I hate to give up on the bigger breeds that we love so much (Rotties, Great Danes, Pits...) but they all shed a lot and I'd REALLY hate to bring a dog home and then have to get rid of it. I'm not giving up on bigger dogs, but I really am starting to wonder if I can tolerate cats. I don't ALWAYS react to cats - I can pet our friend Ron's cats with no problem. And I usually don't react to our friend Tom's dogs either (Great Dane, Lab and Rhodesian), although I've had skin reactions to them on occasion (relatively mild hives, basically). I just don't know how to figure out what types of animals I'm going to react to. I've only just recently starting reacting to Ben's cat, and I've been hanging around his house for 9 years now! I don't know what to do. But for now, I'm thinking our idea of getting a cat after the wedding probably needs to be put on hold. Maybe we'll get a puppy after all... :)

I am a spoiled brat!!!

Quick update... I'm writing this on the BRAND NEW LAPTOP that my dad gave me today OUT OF NOWHERE because I'm a spoiled brat :) How awesome is THAT?!?! He says it's an "early wedding gift" or a "late graduation gift"...whatever I want to call it. HAHAAAAAAAAAAA! I'm so happy!

Weekend Update

We had a whirlwind weekend! Frist stop: Easter production on Good Friday. This production went on all weekend at the church where my mom works/attends and where our wedding officiate is from. In fact, our wedding officiate plays Jesus :) Now, this isn't just any Easter pageant. I use the term "production" because it truly is a production. This church's sanctuary seats 2,000 people, and they ran this production 7 times over the weekend to 7 sold-out crowds. Well, not "sold" out - you didn't have to buy tickets, but you did have to get tickets because they try to control the number of people coming to each performance so no one gets turned away or left out in the lobby to watch it on the screens - but all the tickets for the entire weekend were gone before the first performance. Anyway, we're talking professional lighting and sound, fog machines, an amazingly powerful choir (of which my mom is a member), INCREDIBLY realistic in every way... it's just amazing. When Jesus is being taken to be crucified, the Roman guards (about 30 of them) lead him through the audience, covered in blood (caked in his hair, dripping down his face, soaking his clothes... it's incredible) and bruises, they're screaming at him, they're screaming at YOU in the audience ("What are YOU looking at?!?!), they push him down and smack him and he falls under his huge wooden cross... so powerful. Especially since I recognize this man as my Pastor who I love so dearly! When they nail him on the cross, blood splatters from his hands and feet. When they raise him up on the cross, he isn't tied to it - he's ON there. I still haven't figured out how they do it. All you can see holding him on there are nails, and his legs are bent and his feet are nailed to it so he isn't standing on anything... it's a mystery. Pastor Joey just puts SO much of himself into it. And he looks SO much like the pictures you see of Jesus. He's been growing his hair and beard for months, and with a white robe on... wow. Anyway, it was just amazing. It was so powerful and moving and humbling - the perfect way to get your heart in the right place for observing Easter weekend. It's such a blessing to have the opportunity to really FEEL the pain and anguish of seeing someone you love and care for going through all that. It's so realistic that you feel it - it brings tears to your eyes. I just kept thinking, if I knew that Pastor Joey was going through all that for ME, to save ME, how grateful would I be? How much would I do for him and for his family? Wouldn't I be in the streets singing his praises, telling everyone what he had done for me? Wouldn't I feel eternally indebted? These are all the feelings I should have, every day, toward Jesus. Because even though I wasn't there 2000 years ago to see it, that's exactly what happened. We hear the story over and over and we think about what an amazing sacrifice it was, but to have a real live reminder of it and to really feel it is another thing entirely. I saw it last year too, and as long as I'm within driving distance I'll go back to see that production every year, and I'll be bringing everyone who will come. It's just amazing.

So, Saturday... Saturday we went and met Jamie, our photographer, at sopping-wet Turf Valley. It was raining, but we did get a chance to show him the ballroom, and to look through the ballroom window at the gazebo area. I was having flashes of what it would feel like to be staring at that rainy, dreary view of the gazebo on May 29th... *shudder* NOT HAPPENING. Anyway, he had offered to take some shots of us while we were there, just for fun, because he's such a great guy :) But I figured oh well, it's raining, guess we won't be able to seize that opportunity. But then as we were leaving, Jamie said "you know, I could come out sometime next weekend if you guys still want to do some shooting, maybe Friday evening..." SWEET! He's so nice - he's doing this for free, yet he's still willing to make another 20 minute trip and give up time with his wife and 6-week-old baby to snap some nice photos for us. We have met some of the GREATEST people in planning this wedding! Our DJ is fantastic, our photographer is the nicest guy ever, our Pastor is simply amazing... we've just been so blessed.

Next, we went out to the apartment... to PAINT. Of course. So we bought some more Behr paint from Home Depot - a color called "squirrel". Ben thought the name alone was reason enough to buy the paint :) It was a light brownish-gray color. I know that isn't everyone's cup of tea, but we had seen a similar color in one of Behr's little pamphlets and it looked really nice with white and brown accents (two of our three bathroom colors - dark brown, cream and slate blue), and we thought our blue would go with it too, after holding the paint chip up to our towels. Long story short, after starting to edge out the room with this color, we decided it wasn't our cup of tea either. Kinda looked like poop. And my dad was there helping us paint, and he thought that the Behr paint was awfully thick compared to paint he'd used before, and that it wasn't going on very well, was hardly covering at all (DEFINITELY needed a 2nd coat) and was pulling back off the wall too easily (all issues we've noticed with the Behr we've used so far, but for all we knew, ALL paint acts like that). Having heard that, I decided that we'd try a different kind of paint for the next color we chose. So we went back to good ol' Home Depot, and this time we bought some Ralph Lauren paint. Durango Blue, it's called. It's just a tad darker than our towels, but the same kind of blue. There's probably no point in trying to show you the color, since every computer monitor is different, but I guess it's worth a shot...

So anyway, the point of this story is simple: RALPH LAUREN PAINT ROCKS. It went on smooth as a baby's bottom, covered perfectly in one coat... it was magic. I will say that it didn't behave so well with a paint brush, but with the edger and the roller it went on like a dream, and we just used sponge applicators to get the corners instead of brushes. And this color is definitely darker than the Behr "squirrel" color that we were trying to paint with before, but it covered 10X better, and we didn't have ANY of the roller-pulling-the-paint-off-the-wall problems. It cost about $8 more per gallon than the Behr, but the hassle and cursing and bad moods it saved us are priceless. We will be sticking with RL from here on out as far as the painting project is concerned.

Moving on... Sunday was Easter. We got up and went to the Easter service at church, and then went to Ben's house to meet up with his sisters and start pulling together our very first Easter dinner WITHOUT any moms. Ben's mom had left the day before for Tennessee to visit his step dad's family, and my mom was still doing Easter performances at her church, so we were left to our own devices for Easter dinner. Amberly brought a honey-glazed, spiral-cut ham and some desserts, Em brought scalloped potatoes, green beans, rolls and more dessert, we brought corn, cole slaw and some cheese and crackers to munch on... it all turned out wonderfully! I was so proud of us! The kids even had an easter egg hunt (promptly followed by an easter egg throw-down drag-out melt-down of course... too much competition for the precious candy! Can you blame them?!?! I remember when candy was my biggest worry... aaaaah the good ol' days...). We hung out late, got everything cleaned up and put back together, enjoyed some coffee and various pies (Bob Evans Coconut Creme, Mrs. Smiths Cinnabon Apple pie... holy crap, and Strawberry Cheesecake), and had a lovely time chatting and laughing. It was a great Easter!

So I think that's it... it was a long but very enjoyable weekend :)

Before I go though... In other news, my dress finally came in on Thursday last week! My first fitting is this evening. SOOOooooo excited! I can't wait to see it again and put it on! Yay!!! And we're getting married in 45 days. Holy CRAP.

An update on painting and such

I want to qualify the photo below by assuring you that our walls no longer look like this. But this was a giant source of frustration and anguish this weekend...

Our beautiful blue walls, which turned out so perfectly once they had dried, were destroyed by the 3M company and their psycho painters tape. Alright, maybe it's not the TAPE's fault, but as we began to remove the tape, no matter how slowly and carefully we worked at it, chunks of paint came off with it. EVERYWHERE. Along the ceilings, the baseboards, the trim, the corners... EVERYWHERE. Not only was the paint ripping, but the tape was ripping and leaving miniscule slivers IN the paint, that then had to be dug out with a fingernail, and usually took more paint with them once they were finally removed. Ugh. Needless to say, Ben was just about beside himself with pure, unadulterated rage by about 5 minutes into the process, while I sat quietly peeling tape and trying not to express my own frustration for fear that even my small contribution would be the straw that broke the camel's back, and the roof would finally give way and go flying off. It was NOT an enjoyable afternoon, to say the least. This was Saturday. We got rid of the tape, sat around in the floor being pissed off, and then went to Ron and Jeanne's for some good, old-fashioned sorrow-drowning. I didn't feel so hot the next day, after my two beers and at least 3 glasses of wine. Yikes. But I needed it after trying to calm Ben's Bonner Fit all afternoon. "You can paint all you want but I'm DONE." "We're painting it all back to white and never touching a paint can again." You get the idea. So that was AWESOME.

Sunday we went down to DC to see the cherry blossoms, which were in full bloom on a lovely spring day. It was actually a little hot walking around the mall! Being such a lovely day, and a weekend day at that, it was INCREDIBLY packed everywhere we went (the subway, the sidewalks, the memorials, the FOOD STAND... I won't even get into THAT fiasco execpt to say that it took us about 3 hours to have lunch!). We walked all over creation, saw the Washington monument, the WWII memorial, the Lincoln Memorial (from a distance), and walked along the Potomac with the lovely cherry blossoms and weeping willows. We were with Amberly and Chris and the boys (Leo, 4 and Evan, 16 months), and they actually did very well. Leo LOVED the metro ride - he just LOVES trains so between the metro train itself and the cargo trains that run along side it, he was in heaven :) Evan got a little restless at times, but he did take a nap in his stroller for part of the time, and he was generally pretty cooperative for a 16-month-old. It was a long day for them, so they were definitely starting to hit that invisible wall toward the end of the day, but it was a lot of fun and I'm so glad we got to spend the day on a nice outing with them :)

Monday, we went back to the apartment to try to fix "the mess". Ben still wasn't really in any frame of mind to be working on it, but we both REALLY wanted to get it taken care of so that it was off our minds. We tried a few things on a small scale that were obviously NOT going to do the trick, so we ended up re-taping, filling in along the edges with a sponge applicator, letting the fill-in dry for about 2 hours (during which I took him to our neighborhood PF Changs for a beer and some good food in hopes that he'd chill out!), filling in again with a second coat, and then immediately peeling the tape off. It worked. Since the paint never dried completely to the tape, there was no ripping. The combination of the eggshell finish (which of course changes the chemistry and the behavior of the paint), and the fact that there were 3 coats of completely dry paint forming a bridge between the wall and the tape, made for a total disaster that we now know how to avoid. Either don't tape and use an edger, or remove the tape immediately and re-tape if a second coat is necessary after the first one dries. If nothing else, this has helped my cause with the giant living room wall situation - Ben definitely doesn't want to paint it dark red anymore :) We'll still do the dark red on some normal walls as an accent, but the big wall AIN'T HAPPENIN. I'm thinking of doing a lighter color in the kitchen too, just because I don't want to have to prime and do 2 coats in there, with all the cutting in and trimming around things that painting the kitchen requires. I'm thinking perhaps a nice sunny orange or yellow, or maybe a sage green. We shall see. But I need to make sure that it fits with the color in the living room (the space sorta runs together, at least visually), and I'm really not going for the McDonalds look, so yellow might be out. The red is definitely on the purple-y side, so it wouldn't be too bad, but I'd rather just avoid the possibility of my home looking like a hot dog stand.

So that's where we stand on the painting project. We've spent two weekends working on it and the bedroom STILL isn't finished. We still have to fill in with the light color where the tape for the blue walls was, and that's going to be a BLAST because I refuse to put any tape ON the blue walls. I think I'm going to have to use the edger and then fill in the seam by hand. Ugh. At least we've learned what the specific challenges of that particular scheme (two walls one color and two walls another) are, and we'll know to avoid them next time. Ben will NOT be participating in that project. I hope to start the kitchen and/or bathroom this weekend, and I hope to have some pictures of a FINISHED bedroom to post!

In other news, I am going to be in miserable debt for the rest of my life. I got my "financial aid award letter" from school today. They use the term "award" rather loosely. The only thing I was "awarded" was a 4,000-dollar-per-year grant that I don't have to pay back - the rest (approximately $50,512) is LOANS. DEAR GOD. This is PER YEAR, mind you. DEAR GOD. I knew that this was the amount I'd need to cover tuition and fees and living expenses and such, but I was really hoping to get more free money than that. I think there's still hope for a Senatorial Scholarship from the state, but even that's a long-shot so I'm not putting too many of my eggs in that basket. I looked through the budget that they're giving me these loans for, and I found about $5200 that I can trim (which is over $20,000 that I won't have to borrow over 4 years - HOORAY!), but the rest is on me. Anyway, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the reality of all that debt at the moment. I've known that it was coming, but now I actually have to do it. I have to sign the promissory notes and put all that debt in MY NAME. It's scary as hell, depressing as hell, and like I said, very overwhelming. Ben about dropped his teeth when I gave him the total figure. "You can't go to medical school babe. Don't go! We're going to be paying 2 mortagages for the rest of our lives!" ...oh the drama. Ugh. On that note, I think I'll go look for pennies in the sofa.

The Heart of a Servant

Back when I was beginning the application process for medical school, I was forced (for the first time) to put some real thought and consideration into the true motivations beneath my desire to become a doctor. Partially for my own benefit, and partially because I had to write essays on the topic :) There are a zillion superficial reasons for wanting to become a doctor. It seems quite glamorous on TV, and even when you eliminate some of that glamor from your own perception of the career, just to make sure you're being realistic, there's still plenty of glamor left to make it an attractive option. Who doesn't think it would be great to save lives? Who doesn't think it would be cool to know and understand so much about the human body and be able to fix its problems? Who doesn't think that being a doctor is an essential and incredibly important service that people really appreciate? Who hasn't heard some mother encourage her daughter to marry a doctor or a lawyer? It carries a lot of prestige and earning potential, and it just seems like a FUN job to have, you know?

These are the cookie-cutter reasons for wanting to become a doctor that EVERY med school applicant knows he or she must avoid, like the plague. In considering my own motivations, I discovered something about myself for the first time - something that God has been continually working on in my life ever since (and probably before, too, I just wasn't so aware of it then). I really do feel motivated by service. At first, I wrote that because it sounded good. But the more I worked through those essays and prepared for those interview questions, the more real that became for me. To be a doctor is to be a public servant. While doctors may be much better compensated for their service than many other types of public servants, it's still public service. In fact, being a doctor requires a lot of extra sacrifice - sacrifices that, depending on who you are, may not really be fairly compensated for, despite the size of the paycheck. I don't say all this to pump up myself and my career choice, nor do I mean to say that this is the only career that makes these sorts of demands on a person. I'm just trying to point out something that I myself never really understood about this career until it became more of a reality for me. It's NOT all that glamorous, it takes a LONG time and an ENORMOUS financial investment to achieve it, it has the potential to be incredibly frustrating and disheartening, it requires one to work demanding hours often unexpectedly, it carries with it an immense responsibility and an endless series of exhaustingly intimate relationships... being a doctor requires that a person give A LOT of his or herself. This is often at the expense of his or her family and personal relationships, not to mention his or her own sanity and well-being. And to be GOOD at it - to create a temporary relationship that's deep and intimate enough to truly win a patient's confidence and trust, and deep enough to offer real comfort and reassurance in a time of crisis - that requires not only technical and social skill, but a willingness to open oneself up to that sort of relationship, with total strangers, over and over again until it seems like there's no empathy or compassion left to give out.

That's the kind of doctor I want to be. I want to be the kind of doctor that is capable of giving that much of herself to total strangers. I want to be technically skilled too, of course, but my own personal career philosophy places an incredible amount of importance on those personal relationships. If I can really develop that skill, I can really make an impact on people's lives. If they trust my medical opinion, maybe they'll trust my faith too. If they buy into the idea that I truly care about them and want to see them get better (or get off the streets or stop using drugs), maybe they'll start caring more about themselves. It's these small ways of helping people who really need a little help that motivate me. I try not to let myself be naive or get too many grand ideas in my head about how much of a difference I'm going to make - I just want to make a small difference for a few people. I think that desire comes from God. I think that God has gifted me with the abilities and opportunities that I needed to get here, and that He made me with this desire buried inside me, and that He's now working on cultivating a servant's spirit in me. I didn't always feel like "serving". I always hated community service requirements, never thought I had the time or the energy to go out of my way to help other people... up until recently I've been a very selfish person without even realizing it (not that I'm not still a selfish person, I just realize it now). But I really feel as if God has been working on that part of me lately, in preparation for the career I'm about to take on.

"How so?" you might ask...

• Ben's dad. I had a VERY hard time taking on an attitude of service toward Ben's dad. I still do sometimes. I felt as though he hadn't done much of anything for his kids and so he didn't deserve much of anything from them, especially when it involved going out of their way and making huge sacrifices. I'll be honest - I resented the situation a lot. Mostly, I resented Ben having to put his Dad's needs above mine. For most of our relationship (all but the past 5 or 6 months, basically), his Dad's needs weren't even a part of the picture - they never entered the equation. Suddenly, I couldn't be #1 all the time anymore. It sucked. Like I said, SELFISH PERSON. But it's getting easier, and God is teaching me SO much through this situation. He's shown me, often in ugly ways, how selfish I'm capable of being. He's shown me how rewarding it can be to completely give up what I want in order to make life easier on Ben or one of his sisters, or just to do something specifically FOR his dad. It's been quite the blessing in disguise.
  

• My job. My job isn't bad as jobs go. It pays pretty well for where I am in life, I get a lot of nice federal government benefits, my health insurance is kick-ass, I have a ton of flexibility with my hours and time off... but I don't enjoy it. It's been a long time since I enjoyed it. I commute an hour and a half each way, I spend the day doing a lot of things really irritate me, I DON'T want to go to work when I get up in the morning, sometimes the people I work closely with don't seem to appreciate me very much... but it's those very people who I'm here for. I've already gotten into medical school - I'm moving on as of July 31st and I don't have to accomplish anything else while I'm here. I work for people who ARE trying to accomplish something in order to further their careers. They have a defined set of goals that they have to achieve before they can move on. God is really showing me here lately that I need to focus on serving their needs despite my own issues - that that's why I'm here in this job.

• My struggle with staying at home versus becoming a doctor. This one is kind of cyclical. All that I've been learning about adopting a servant's attitude makes me feel like God is preparing me for a career as a doctor, while at the same time, I am uncovering new insights on servanthood as I consider this struggle that I'm having. While discussing the topic with Em last night, it occurred to me that if I stay at home I'm certainly being a servant, but in a way, it's my heart's own selfish way of serving - I get to serve the people I love in my own little bubble. Let me qualify this by saying that I DO NOT think that stay-at-home moms are selfish - what I'm saying is that I think it WOULD be selfish of me to stay at home under the guise of serving my family when what God is REALLY calling me to is serving the community at large as a doctor. The fact that I feel this pang of selfishness when I consider staying at home makes me feel like God really IS calling me to be a doctor. Many other people would consider pursuing a career to be the more selfish route, but that doesn't really strike a chord with me. That's just not the sentiment that God is laying on my heart these days.

• My upcoming marriage. It's interesting to me that in all of the preparation we've been trying to do for our marriage, we've consistently been directed toward messages of servanthood. From our marriage class, to the seminar we went to, to the books I've read - every resource that I've been pointed to during this time has been squarely focused on finding success and fulfillment in marriage through serving your spouse. As a result of all that, I'm really beginning to view marriage through that lens. It's becoming a part of my general outlook and perspective on marriage, and strange as it may sound, it's what I look forward to the most about marrying Ben. I'm just really excited to find new ways to serve him. I know that sounds crazy - at least putting it in those terms sounds a little crazy - but it's true. And not in a newly-wed, lovey-dovey sort of way, exactly - I just look forward to being able to spend my life making his life better. I don't know. It's just how I feel.

• My own personal struggles with faith and death. I won't go too far into this one, but suffice it to say that I have several close family members who don't know the Lord, the concept of eternity terrifies me (even eternity in Heaven), the concept of death still terrifies me, and especially lately, I've spent a lot of time crying about these fears and how those fears translate to my unsaved relatives. By "terrifies me", I mean I literally come to the brink of panic attacks if I allow myself to think about them for too long. It's bad. It often digresses into me wondering what life is really for, and why we're really here, and what difference it really makes whether we live or die. I assume that when my unsaved relatives ask these questions of themselves, it hurts them and scares them even more than it does me, because in their minds, this is all there is. It has forced me to consider what I feel is most important in life, and why I think we're here, and the answer is always SERVING OTHERS. I feel like I've done something productive when I do something for someone else. Particularly lately, doing things for other people is what keeps me sane when I start thinking about those fears I have. No matter what goes on in the supernatural world, no matter what happens after death, I feel like I'm using my time here WELL if I'm using it for someone else. I feel that SO deeply and SO strongly, and it's such a comfort to me.
  

I really hope I don't come off sounding self-righteous as I write about this stuff, it's just how I've been feeling lately and it's what I think God is really working on in me. None of this movement toward servanthood is a result of my own virtue or "goodness" - it's only possible through God's work in me, to make me more like Christ. I'm just so thankful that he cares enough about me and the kind of person I become that He's willing to do the hard work of changing my heart.

My Struggle

Well, first of all, I'm definitely sick. I stayed home today with my scratchy throat, throbbing head and aching joints. I don't forsee myself going in to work tomorrow, if for no other reason than to keep my germs to myself. I started feeling worse this evening than I did when I woke up this morning, which doesn't bode well for tomorrow morning. It's so hard to tell in the morning though. And I feel bad missing more work because I was off on Monday for a doctor's appt and I'm off this coming Monday to go downtown and see the cherry blossoms in DC for Ben's mom's birthday. I feel like I take unfair advantage of my flexible time off (or at least that other people I work with may feel that way) and it makes me feel like a slacker. I know I'm not a slacker for staying home when I'm sick, but it still feels wrong to some degree because I don't lose anything for staying home - there's no penalty. Is it mildly sick that I need punishment to feel ok about staying home when I'm sick?

Anyway, that's not why I'm blogging. Recently, I've been feeling as though I should just stop blogging. It seems like everyone else's blog, everyone else's life, is full of real world stuff that actually matters, and my blog starts to look like mindless drivel to me. People are getting sick and dying, children are being born and raised, and I'm blogging about place cards and program covers and paint schemes. When I read the blogs of the stay at home moms, I suddenly feel like my life is barreling full speed toward insignificance, because I know I won't have that with my kids. I am so inspired by these women... Laura, Amberly, Kat... I feel like they're so lucky. And I certainly don't mean to say that I think their lives are easy by any stretch of the imagination - not only is it stressful and exhausting, but it's an immense responsibility that I'm sure is quite terrifying at times. But these mothers will have a connection and a bond with their children that I'm afraid I'll never have. It really amazes me that there still exists this palpable lack of respect for stay at home moms. As I approach the big career decisions that will define the rest of my life, I find myself feeling as though I'm almost abandoning the most significant calling I have in life - I guess men just don't understand that. And I don't know what the deal is with the feminists. I don't think feminism has been a bad thing, I just think it's a little ironic that generally speaking, the feminists have chosen to assert themselves by simply adopting more male characteristics. How is that asserting one's feminism? These women see the natural female calling to motherhood as being weak or giving in or giving up. They think that acting more male - being aggressive or overly assertive or domineering - is the best way to further the female cause. I'm also not a proponent of "traditional roles" and I think it's every woman's choice what she decides to do with her life - I just hate the catch 22. If you don't stay at home, half of society sees you in a negative light and you feel guilty leaving your kids. If you do stay at home, the other half of society looks down on you. Why can't we just stop placing extra value on one choice or the other? Again, THANK YOU glorious media. We'd be better off without them, I'm convinced. I like TV just as much as the next guy, but seriously. I don't know how they live with themselves, perpetuating the stereotypes, playing up the conflicts, feeding on fear and weakness... the whole industry is MESSED UP.

Whew, that was QUITE a tangent. I'm actually a little proud of that one. But again, not why I'm blogging - though it'll do as a segue into the real point of this post... Why do I still struggle so much with my career choice? Will I always feel this way? Probably. Funny how I have "mommy guilt" about the effects that the career I haven't started yet will have on the children I don't have yet... it's gonna be a LONG road. When I really think about what my job will be like when I'm finally doing it, I'm really excited. I'll never feel like I'm not making a difference, at least on some level. Sure, it'll be incredibly frustrating at times, but it'll be pretty amazing at times too. But how often will I feel like I'm neglecting my kids and my husband? I have to keep reminding myself that, as a Christian, I have a different set of priorities. If I'm being obedient to God and seeking His will in all that I do, I won't be neglecting my family - that's not His will. People who are involved in the medical profession may think I'm naive when I say this, but I simply won't allow my career to take over my life. I just won't. That isn't an option for me. I don't care if I have to change jobs ten times to find the right balance. That's just how I feel. I mean I won't lie - having to take that attitude scares me shitless. My career would be a lot easier if I didn't have a family to worry about, but that only works if having a successful career is more important to you than having a family. Watching other people rise above me in the profession will be hard on me - I'm competitive. Being tough with my bosses about my schedule and risking my job will be scary. Having to miss my kids' soccer games will hurt. But there's so much to be gained from putting in the effort to get that balance right - because if I get it right, I can have it all. I won't have the ideal home life and I won't have the ideal work life, but I'll have something that makes me really happy.

There's a part of me that's on the verge of leaving it all behind to focus on my family. And there's a part of me that knows I'd spend the rest of my life wondering what it would've been like to follow through with all this and actually become a doctor, and actually save a life. That first part is always trying to convince me that I can always go back and do the doctor thing later (YEAH.), but the reverse isn't true - I can't try the doctor gig and switch to staying at home if it doesn't work out (not with the mountain of debt I'll be under). It's decision time - I either start med school and never look back, or I give it up, work for a while til we're financially stable (doing who knows what), and then focus on that other dream of mine. I know that seems ludicrous, after how hard I've worked to get here, but I really have entertained these thoughts seriously. Maybe every woman goes through this. It wasn't until I got engaged and the reality of family life was pulled into focus that I started truly thinking in terms of "us" (Ben and I and our unborn children) instead of "me". In college, the focus is squarely on YOU, and YOUR future, and what YOU can accomplish. It kinda breeds selfishness, actually, which doesn't really prepare anyone for the REAL world. They convince you that what YOU want really is the most important thing in YOUR life, even though as SOON as you get into a serious relationship, that becomes total baloney. That's why getting married young is so frowned upon - you don't get the chance to establish your own personal goals and get rolling on those before you let someone else come into your life with their own goals and needs and mess it all up. On the other hand, I think it's been a blessing for us that we've been together through all the goal-establishing and plan-making - we've been a part of it in each other's lives and we both understand where we're going and where we want to be, together. Being a part of someone else's dreams and goals and happiness is just as important and fulfilling a contribution to this world - in fact, you're doubling your contribution by spreading your efforts to include furthering someone else's purpose, and then the purposes of the children you bear together. God knew what He was doing when he designed the family unit. Now, Ben isn't always happy about my goals - I think it scares him more than he lets on - but I know he's trying his best to be supportive, and I know he's incredibly proud of me. He'd love nothing more than to have me at home with our kids, truth be told, but he loves me enough to put that vision aside in favor of helping me to pursue my dreams. And that makes it even more important to me that I never let my career and my goals come between me and my husband, because he doesn't let his fears come between us.

As usual, this is way longer than I originally intended. It's late, I'm sick, and you're all probably wondering, "how many times is she going to blog about this?" so I'll let you go :) Holler at 56 days til my wedding!

The hypochondriac doctor. Who paints.

I think I'm getting sick. Ew. Runny nose, headache, scratchy throat, upset stomach... gross. I've been pretty exhausted lately too. Every morning it just seems harder and harder to wake up. I've just been one big medical mess lately. Last summer I was sick for a month with pneumonia, toward the end of the summer I started noticing the upper right abdominal pain and started with the gall bladder investigation, I never quite got my normal lung capacity back and now I'm wheezing every time I work out, I've recently started noticing strange intermittent fluttering feelings in my chest... Ben says I'm a hypochondriac, but I don't make this stuff up. I went to the GI doctor on Monday to follow up on my gall bladder stuff, to let him know that the pain hasn't gotten any worse, it comes and goes, but it hasn't stopped. He's doing one more round of blood work and an ultrasound to make sure that nothing new has developed, and as long as those are ok then we're just going to leave it alone unless the pain ever gets really bad or I start having attacks. I don't want to have to experience an attack, but I also don't want to have unnecessary surgery and have to be all careful about what I eat for the rest of my life. So this sounds like an OK plan to me. I'm seeing my primary care doctor tomorrow about the palpitations and my wheezing. I'm hoping to get an inhaler for when I work out, at least until I can see the pulmonologist at the end of the month. And as far as the palpitations are concerned, I'm figuring she'll probably say they aren't anything to worry about, but I'd like to hear it from her instead of just assuming on my own. You hear too many horror stories about people who get sick and noticed symptoms early but didn't think anything of them, and then one day it's too late to do anything about it when it could've been prevented. If I'm going to be a doctor and expect people to come to me before it's too late, I should probably do the same. So, call me a hypochondriac - at least I won't be one of those stories. I will admit that I get a little paranoid and allow myself to worry more than I should about little feelings or pains that I get from time to time. It's true. But when I feel like my heart isn't beating right, I'm going to the doctor about it. Sorry. And when I get nasty cramps in my diaphragm every time I run because I'm having force air into my lungs so hard, I'm getting an inhaler. And when I have a strong family history of gallstones and I start feeling pains where my gall bladder is, I'm having it checked out. That's just how I roll, and I'm not ashamed!

Anyway, moving on... the painting is going well I think. The light walls in the bedroom dried very nicely. They needed a few touch-ups but those dried fine too, so we won't be doing a second coat. SWEET! The dark walls... well, it was a little embarrassing how terrible they looked after the first coat, but after putting on a second coat yesterday (with much better technique and MUCH better roller pads), they look really good. We both LOVE the color and how it's turning out on the walls. I'm optimistic that once it's dry we'll decide it doesn't need another coat, but it's still within the realm of possibility. It was looking great as it was drying yesterday before we left, but who knows how it'll look when it's completely dry. I'm trying to slowly convince Ben that painting dark red on one of the giant walls in the living room might not be a great idea, but he's still gung-ho. The only way we got the dark blue looking so good was to do long, vertical strokes from floor to ceiling after cutting in around the ceiling/windows/corners etc. We can't do floor-to-ceiling strokes on our 17-foot wall in the living room. It's going to have to be done in sections from top to bottom, and I don't see how that's going to work without leaving bands on the wall where two sections meet, no matter how hard you try to "blend" them. We're finding that trying to "feather" or "fan out" dark paint as you go to blend it into the next section you're painting doesn't really work - it doesn't take much of an inconsistency in pressure or amount of paint on the roller/brush for it to dry funny - it HAS to be applied completely evenly. I hear that reds are the most difficult dark paints to put on a wall evenly, and I just don't forsee it looking right without putting at least 3 coats on, given our experience in the bedroom. I think we should stick with more manageable walls for the dark paints, but he still REALLY wants to try it. The problem with "trying it" is that reversing it would be a giant pain (let it dry, probably two coats of primer to cover the red, one or two coats of whatever light color we're going to put on it...), so once we start we basically just have to keep applying coat after coat until it looks right or we have to call in a professional to fix our mess! It's not so much the work of painting that bothers me - we have a good time working on it together - it's the cost of the paint. At $24 a gallon, and about a gallon per coat for that room, it adds up quickly when you start talking 3 or more coats, plus a coat of primer (cheaper, but still an expense) to start. I think we can still achieve the desired effect (albeit in a less dramatic fashion) by sticking with normal-height walls. Even the "normal" walls are 10 feet high, so putting dark paint on those is still dramatic. At any rate, I'm really just praying that we'll be well-off enough to pay someone to paint our apartment back to white again before we move out, because that's gonna be a major pain in the a**.

On the wedding front... invitations went out on Monday, and so far people seem to like them, from what I hear :) It's so nice to get compliments on the little touches that you stressed over and worked so hard on - it's nice to have people notice the thought you put into them. Aside from that, I don't even know what I need to work on. It actually makes me really nervous - I must be missing something huge that's going to jump out and bite me in the a** very soon. We shall see. We're less than 60 days out now, which is really exciting - mostly because I really hate leaving my beautiful apartment with my fiance only to come home and sleep in my childhood bedroom alone. I REALLY want to live there! It's so nice! And I'm paying out the a** for it! I keep saying a**... sorry. So anyway, this month we have a walk-through of the grounds and the ballroom at Turf Valley with our photographer so he can get some ideas and do a little pre-planning, I'm hosting a brunch for my bridesmaids where I hope to use them as slave labor to put my programs together (I love you girls!!!), and final meetings with my Pastor and the church wedding coordinator to get the ceremony details finalized. Like I said, I feel like I must be missing something very important. OH, there's my DRESS, which still hasn't come in. I need to call the bridal shop. It was supposed to be in by the end of March. It is officially April 1st gosh darnit. Actually, I'm gonna go do that right now. LATER!