Do I dare... buy a Dare?

That's right, I'm giving in. Ben really likes his Dare so far, and I've always secretly wanted one but I was just convinced that it would piss me off. He has NO patience for anything (except his family and me, thank God), so if he can handle it, I'm gonna give it a shot. I hope I don't regret this. I'm already going to pay a $35 restocking fee for returning my phone, and I really don't want to have to pay another fee to return this one too (not to mention the cost of this phone). Plus, if I don't like this one, I fear there's no hope for me on any Verizon phone. I'll probably just go back to the original phone (the decoy) if I don't like the Dare, because at least I've gotten used to the quirks of it and I know how to handle them. It'll still piss me off, but I can deal until something better comes along I suppose. I really hope I like the Dare.

I'm blogging about a stupid cell phone to take my mind off of wedding details. I'm just freaking TIRED of the details. The bigger things were much more enjoyable. This is just, as Amberly might say, like being pecked to death by ducks. Except the ducks are figments of my imagination and they're inside my skull pecking away at my frontal lobe! For whatever reason I'm just convinced, every second of every day, that I'm forgetting something. ALWAYS. It's driving me insane. Yes, I know I'll be married at the end of the day no matter what, but if I just wanted to "be married at the end of the day" I would've gone to the courthouse. This is just part of the package - the reality is, it's crunch time, and what that means for me is, I have a lot to get done and very little time to do it. So it's ok that I'm feeling this way. I chose to go the "big wedding" route, and I would never have it any other way. I'm enjoying it while it lasts, because even though it's stressful, it's a stress that I'll miss a few weeks from now. I'll miss the excitement and the anticipation. I'll never get to look forward to this and freak out about it ever again. I say that I'm "tired of it", but what I really mean is just that I'm tired, period. It's a little draining. If I didn't have to worry about work and I could just bask in the little details of my wedding uninterrupted, I'd feel much better :) Oh well - you can't always get what you want!

Hello friends! It's been a while!

I'm in a much better mood than I was for my last post, I must say :) First of all, I'm getting married in THREE WEEKS. I never thought I'd be able to say that. NEVER. It just seemed WAY too far away to ever actually happen. So that's pretty exciting! And we're very glad we didn't change our honeymoon plans, because it looks like the whole flu panic is starting to calm down. As of this moment, we're still going to the beautiful 5-star Omni in beautiful Cancun :) I have my wedding hairstyle nailed down also, which was a source of stress for a while because my trial runs just weren't quite working out the way I had hoped. But my wonderful stylist just kept working with me and worknig with me til we got it, and now we've got it. I've made a few final payments and had a few final meetings - still several to go of course. The response deadline has passed, and of course there are still a bunch missing so I'm having to track people down, which isn't fun but I'm finding ways to pawn some of that off :) It's just an irritation that I really don't need at the moment - there are far too many other details that need attention right now - and it amazes me how many people just don't think about that. Maybe it's a generational thing, and since weddings weren't always such lavish affairs, people didn't always HAVE to respond, you could just kinda show up or not show up. Well, NOT SO in 2009, my friends. NOT SO. I'm still worried that there are people who don't get that who are responding yes and haven't really "decided" that they're actually coming. I love it when you finally get ahold of a straggler and they give you something like "yeah, I should be able to make it". SHOULD be able to? No. You're either coming or you aren't, it's that simple people. Obviously if you're in a car accident or your kid's arm falls off or something, you can have a free pass, but this is not a "maybe" kind of thing. It's someone's wedding. There are head counts to be reported and per-person costs to be paid. Ugh. Sorry for the rant. I just don't quite understand why people seem to miss that point. Well, I do understand - they either haven't planned a wedding yet, or they got married 15 or 20 years ago (or more) and things have changed a lot since then. I do understand, but it doesn't make it any easier for me to pick up that slack. Oh well - I just have to chalk up to the many joys of wedding planning :)

In other news, our apartment is finished :) Well, the painting is finished. We actually finished last weekend but I didn't have my camera with me. Painting the big walls actually went pretty quickly - it only took us one weekend (minus the priming we did the previous weekend which only took about 2 hours. I don't even want to estimate how much we spent in paint and materials for the whole project, but suffice it to say that it was FAR beyond what we ever anticipated or wanted to spend. But, such is life. So here are a few pics of the finished living room/dining room. I'm not gonna pretend to be modest - it looks bad ass ;-P

Not sure what good this picture is, but it sorta gives you an idea of what we painted I guess - the light-colored wall isn't white - we painted it the same color as the light walls in the bedroom.

Again, gives you an idea of what we painted - we love how that angle from the dining room wall juts out. It looks pretty sweet :)

This was my feeble attempt to give you some idea of the color. It's called brazilian ruby - it's a dark red with purple undertones. It looks so great with the light tan color of the other walls, and the white baseboards and such. It's a cool contrast.

So the red took a coat of primer and two coats of paint, but it really did turn out great. No white peeking through, no roller marks, etc. I liked the way the Valspar primer covered (not NEARLY as spotty and patchy as the Behr primer in the bedroom, but then again our technique has probably improved since then), but it was pretty thin and it sprayed EVERYWHERE. I had to paint the window sills and the mantle white again to cover all the dark grey primer spray! But if you're planning on repainting those trim pieces anyway (like most people do, although we weren't going to!), I'd recommend the Valspar primer over the Behr ANY day of the week. I'm also a firm believer in Ralph Lauren paint. We still ended up having to do 2 coats with the darker colors (though we were VERY close to only needing one - a slightly more experienced painter could probably have done the red in one coat plus primer!), but it goes on so nicely and it didn't take nearly as much effort and precision to make it look nice as the Behr requires. I still see roller marks in places in all the Behr-painted walls - none in the RL-painted walls. It's just a more user-friendly paint I think, which makes it TOTALLY worth the extra couple bucks for someone who isn't a pro, especially when trying to do a large project. Just saves a lot of frustration. The tape came off much better with the RL paint also (after the 3 coats in the LR/DR, we had minimal peeling problems as compared to the problems we had in the BR). So anyway, for anyone thinking about doing some painting, that's my two cents. Oh, and start a savings account for it now ;)

I need to go take a shower and get myself together for my evening's activities. Ben is out bachelor partying so I'm distracting myself with a little wedding gift project. I'm very excited about it! Can't divulge much though... sorry ;) Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Oh, can I just say one more thing real quick? (You might ask, "I don't know Jenna, CAN you say anything 'quickly'?" lol!) Verizon's phone selection SUCKS. I've gotten SOO SOOOOO pissed off at my current phone (the LG Decoy... sorry Em, it plucked my last nerve) that I decided to go get a new one. Luckily I had used my Dad's upgrade eligibility to get the Decoy because my old phone was crapping out on me, and now I'm eligible for my own upgrade. So I went and picked up a Samsung Sway. It's basically the same phone, it just has regular arrow keys around the "ok" button instead of the crazy joystick thing that the decoy has (the element that drove me up the wall). I know someone who has had it for about a month and she really likes it, hasn't had any problems or anything that really bugs her, etc. I got it yesterday (for free, which was sweet), and SURPRISE, it's going back. It can't keep up with my texting speed - not even CLOSE! It's unreal how slow it is. And since it isn't keeping up, if I get too far ahead it stops registering every key I hit so it starts screwing up words. I mean, I'm regularly getting 3 and 4 words ahead of it. I'm not trying to brag about my texting prowess, I'm just saying, it's freaking SLOW. Since the main function I use is texting, I can't handle that for 2 years. Ben got an LG Dare (the touch screen phone) so I might try to put up with this one for another week to see how things go for him. I'm convinced that he'll HATE IT after a week, but we'll see. I just don't see how a touch screen can possibly be good for texting. You can't feel the buttons - you have to be staring at it and focusing on what you're doing. No more texting while walking or talking or doing ANYTHING else other than texting. We'll see how it goes - I expect that once the novelty wears off it'll just be a PIA. That's the only other phone I'd be remotely interested in though, and I seriously doubt I'd want it anyway. Ugh.

So yeah, you were right. I'm incapable of saying anything "real quick".

Here's a story for the grandkids... "the swine flu ruined my honeymoon"

I probably don't even need to say this, but I'll say it anyway: I want to scream. What am I supposed to do with this?

As many of you may already know, our honeymoon is booked in Cancun. As in, Cancun MEXICO. For those of you who don't watch the news, MEXICO has been a hot topic these days, what with the street violence, tourist kidnappings, earthquakes, rampant police corruption and drug wars. And now, to boot, Mexico just handed us the proverbial "last straw" that sent our honeymoon from "it'll be ok" to "we need to change all our plans" - the only terrible plague that Mexico was really missing up to this point - a national pandemic. The swine flu has killed about 150 people in Mexico now, and there have been over 1600 cases reported throughout the country. The CDC and Homeland Security have issued a formal travel advisory stating that all non-essential travel to Mexico should be avoided. When it was just the street violence, we reasoned that it would be fine - that stuff was mostly going on in the border cities and not in the tourist towns anyway, and we'd just stay on the resort grounds and play it safe. But now there's a nasty and potentially lethal bug floating around in the air. Maybe it hasn't made it to Cancun yet, but will it? Who knows. Maybe this will all clear up in 2 weeks. Who knows. Or maybe it'll spread like wildfire and we won't just be ADVISED not to travel there, but travel there will be BANNED. Who knows. And if we wait it out only to find that that's the case, we'll REALLY be up shits creek without a paddle, and a week or two before our WEDDING, no less.

SO, here are our options. #1 - wait it out and hope for the best. OH, but wait, in looking around at our other options last night I stumbled upon some recent reviews of the hotel where we're currently booked, which enlightened me to the fact that last years' hurricane season f***ed up most of the beach along Cancun, and now it's too rocky to even walk along, much less swim in (review after review after review, and not just from angry people - some were just people saying "we're not big beach people so we really loved it, but if you're a beach person this isn't the resort for you"). WONderful. #2 - Re-exchange to Aruba, which is available with Ben's parents' timeshare for that week. And pay $164 to do it. This is a so-so option, only because the resorts available there are either not on the beach, or just not very up-scale. It's a tough pill to swallow, after having been looking forward to the SWEET ASS resort where we're booked now. #3 - Release the place we have now and book a "getaway vacation" (just a different booking mechanism through the time share company... I won't go into the details) in the Dominican Republic at a nice enough beach front resort, and pay $197 for that. It's a studio room (one room with a bed and a bathroom), with a queen bed (oh alright, I can handle that I guess).

OH, but wait, your plane tickets are non-refundable. At this point in time, AirTran is only waiving transfer fees to change flights if you're traveling before May 4th. This may change of course, if the pandemic continues. But if not, we're stuck with the $75 per ticket fee. Alright, so it's $150 extra. Plus the $164 or $197 to change venues depending on which one we choose. Not TOO bad given the circumstances.

OH, but wait, AirTran doesn't fly to Aruba, NOR do they fly to the Dominican. So for example, if we want to go to the Dominican (which is our preference at this point) we can catch a plane to San Juan, Puerto Rico (since AirTran flies there). This flight SHOULD stay within the same price range as our original tickets, but if it does get more expensive we'd have to pay the difference (plus our $75 transfer fee per ticket, if the travel advisory is lifted before then). THEN we get to hop another flight from San Juan over to Santo Domingo, DR. To the tune of another $650 round trip (total, including both of our tickets). Not to mention the fact that we get to hope and pray that our first flight doesn't get delayed and screw up our second flight, and not to mention the fact that the flight times work out such that we won't make it there til at least dinner time.

So, in summary, we will be spending somewhere in the neighborhood of an extra $847-$997 (depending on whether or not we get slapped with the ticket transfer fees), because of this MOTHER-LOVING FLU. I'm having a GREAT day.

I'm inches away from busting out the plastic and booking a cruise. No, MILLIMETERS.

As promised...

Finally... some photos of our progress. We had a LOOOOOONG weekend, but a very productive one. We spent our first night(s) there, finally, which was kinda cool although we were both FAR too pooped to really acknowledge it or get excited about it. Friday evening we tackled the dresser, which went well and only took us about 3 hours. No arguing, no missing parts, no giant "oops" moments... well, til the end when I put two drawers together backwards and we couldn't disassemble them so we had to drill our own holes to finish them... but that's neither here nor there ;) Anyway, moving on, we got up at about 9:30 on Saturday (*GASP* for those of you who know Ben) and went to Home Depot to decide on and purchase paint. This was (hopefully) our final paint purchase - HOORAY! We decided on a medium olive green for the kitchen, and the dark purpley-red for the living room, as previously discussed (we just had to find a Ralph Lauren color that matched the original Behr color we had picked out). We also decided to take the leap and carry the dark red from the living room across the entire back wall into the dining room. When we got back, we started the first coat of green in the kitchen. Ben's mom came to help out later in the afternoon, and we ended up going out to a late lunch with her and then finishing up the kitchen that evening. We also touched up the bathroom paint, and hung floating shelves and a towel ring in there too. It's beauteous ;) It might be my favorite so far! We tried to watch a movie on Saturday night when we got into bed (the air matress, that is), but we both passed out quickly and slept like rocks til the morning. On Sunday we got up and made quick work of the kitchen - unfortunately a second coat was necessary - touched that up, hung a curtain rod in the bedroom, hit Qdoba for lunch (a very fortunate discovery - Qdoba is definitely an acceptable substitute for Chipotle!), and then got started priming in the living room and dining room. So enough chatter, on to the photos...

In the picture below, you can see the living room to the right and Ben's legs are in front of the dining room wall - that's him up on the giant ladder priming.
My green kitchen :) I like the contrast of the walls/cabinets/trim and doors. It's not my favorite room though, I have to say. The edges look pretty shoddy, in my humble opinion. Damn contractors and their messy caulking.

TaDa! Our lovely, serene bathroom :) I DO love this room! I love the way the colors turned out, and the shelving will be very handy for adding some decorative touches and making it even cuter! If you could see it in person, you'd be even more impressed. For example, you can't see the pattern on the shower curtain at all, but the stitching catches the light so beautifully... lol :)

This is me, in the midst of the dresser pieces on the floor of our bedroom. Scroll down for more of the bedroom...

A nice corner shot, to illustrate (a) the perfect seam between the colors - if you follow my blog at all you know that this was NO easy feat - and (b) the way the colors come together and go so nicely :)

Of course I have more photos, but I figured I'd just put a few good ones on here to give you all a sneak peak. You'll just have to come see it for yourself sometime!

Pray for us

We're heading to the apartment shortly. We're planning on assembling our dresser tonight, and buying the weekend's paint supply. We're just going to bring an air matress and spend the night I think, so we can get up tomorrow and paint the day away. My hope is that we can prime the living room and paint the kitchen tomorrow. That would leave Sunday open to get a coat of paint on the wall in the living room. Maybe if we work all day tomorrow, we can prime the LR, paint the kitchen, and then do the first coat of color in the LR (the primer only has to dry for 4 hours). Hmm. I don't want to get TOO ambitious though. We shall see! And I'm going to bring my camera this time so I can take pics of the finished bedroom and bathroom! Ooooh, that reminds me - we still need to put the finishing touches on the bathroom. Hmm. Maybe we can squeeze that in tonight. Sorry - thinking outloud. Er, on-screen... whatever. Anyway, just wanted to beg you all to pray for us. Patience for the painting, and patience for each other. WHEW. Here goes...

Up to no good...

Need I say more? LOL I've been on a bit of a puppy kick lately :) I'm finding out that I seem to be quite allergic to some cats, as I may have mentioned in a previous post, which makes me think we shouldn't get a cat, which makes me think "hmmm... maybe we do need a puppy after all..." I'm not sure why I think I need a pet right now anyway. Of any sort. Not having enough time for it really isn't my biggest concern - I'll have a great schedule when I start school in the fall that would allow me to come home at least briefly around lunchtime to let it out (and even be home for the day most of the time), and it's not like Ben won't be around in the evenings, nor is my dog going to feel neglected because I'm sitting next to it on the couch studying instead of sitting next to it on the couch watching TV... it doesn't know the difference, nor will it care. And since I refuse to let my body go to shit just because I'm in medical school, I have no problem taking it out with me for a walk or jog - that's just EXTRA motivation to get out and exercise. My biggest concern is the financial aspect. We're going to be living on a tight budget that won't have much wiggle room for emergency vet visits or expensive doggie medications or anything else that might come up suddenly. I think we could handle the routine stuff - it's the unexpected health issues that scare me. And you just never know with pets. I really like puggles though :) That's what the puppy in the picture is - it's a pug-beagle mix. Relatively low shedding, moderate amount of energy (not a working dog or a super-hyper dog that needs extra attention and exercise), stays small (less than 30 pounds) which is great for apartment life, and ridiculously cute too :) Anyway, I'm also not excited about the prospect of trying to house train a puppy from the 3rd floor. Ick. That's almost enough to dissuade me right there. Not to mention the restrictions it puts on your social life... no more "having too many" and just staying over at a party or a friends' house - gotta get home to let the dog out. No more "we've been shopping all day, let's stop on the way home and go out to dinner" - gotta get home to feed the dog and let it out. So, at the end of the day, I know full well that I don't really need or want a pet right now. I really don't need or want to be responsible for anything other than myself and my husband for a while - I think that freedom will be very nice. But they're just so darn cute...

In other news, I found a GREAT website called momMD.com. Direct answer to prayers right there. I don't even remember now how I found it - pretty sure it was completely random though. Anyway, it has tons of resources for moms who are doctors or med students - blogs, articles, surveys, etc. It's been really encouraging to read some of these blogs - I found one woman who is 25, finished her first 2 years of med school and took the 3rd year off to be with her kids (2-year-old and brand new 3-month-old), and her husband is in OBGYN residency AND in the military. I've been reading about her struggle between staying at home and going back to finish med school, her struggle to figure out the timing for her residency and her husband's and his deployments and trying to keep their family together, her ideas on what specialties might work best for wanting to be with her kids... it's been very informative and also calming. Even though she's often feeling lost and unsure and indecisive, it feels so good to read my own thoughts coming out of someone else's head and to know that I'm not alone and that these things can be done. And I'm not even planning on necessarily having any children during medical school (though I'd consider it after 3rd year I think), and my husband isn't in medicine AND the military... so really, how hard can my life be? I've also been reading about job sharing and part time doctoring, as well as job-share residency positions (didn't know THAT was possible!). Of course it would take longer to finish residency that way, but maybe I'd only have to do it temporarily or sporadically. It's so good to hear about these options! I also didn't know that it was OK to take a year or two off between school and residency - THAT option could come in handy as well. I don't want to postpone my career too much - if for no other reason than the fact that we'll need the money I'd be making - but at least I know that if it's in the cards financially and we feel ready for kids, I'll have some flexibility as far as school and starting my career is concerned. I know it's going to be a rough road, but I'm definitely getting some extra encouragement from this website! Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

You know what? F THAT.

What I didn't mention in my previous post, mostly because it was getting far too long, is that this weekend was sorta rough on me, in terms of my work-family struggle. I need to come up with a cutesy nickname for that, don't I? I blog about it enough that it might warrant a fun abbreviation. Not that it's "fun", but, you know. Anyway, Saturday morning while I was waiting for Ben to get back to my house with his dad so that we could meet Em and Josh and load up for the ride out west, my Dad turned on a NOVA special that he had recorded for me - "Doctors' Diaries". NOVA started following these 7 doctors when they graduated from Harvard med school back in '87, and this was a sort of "where are they now" update episode. Without delving into a full synopsis, I'll just sum it up by saying that all 4 of the doctors who had been married were now divorced, some more than once. I think 2 of the 7 had kids. 2 never got married. Only one of the three women they had followed was married with kids, and all she could talk about was what a struggle it was. Their spouses (or ex-spouses, depending on when they were interviewed) went on and on about how they only got the left-overs of their spouse, the worst parts, all that was left after their long hours at work. How their spouses were stuck in a managing mode and treated them like they would treat their nurses or their residents. It was NOT encouraging.

Now, I'll add the caveat that these were Harvard-educated doctors - just the fact that they got INTO Harvard in the first place says something about their ambition level, and their willingness to attend such a tough school says to me that they had high career aspirations. These are people who probably planned all along for their careers to take center stage in their lives. And more importantly, I don't know anything about them in terms of their faith. My faith obviously plays an enormous role in my prioritizing, in the way I view and treat my (soon-to-be) spouse, and in the commitments that I value most (to my God, my husband and my family). But like I said, it was NOT encouraging. Then we visited with the Cookes, and Laura is definitely one of the reasons that I sometimes wish I could stay home. She's a brilliant woman who certainly could've found tons of success in any professional arena that she chose, but she chose her own path and she's just thriving and loving it. I just love reading about the fun activities she plans for her kids and the time she gets to spend with them, and even the frustrations she's gone through - it's the stuff of real life, and I just love it. So chatting with Laura, and holding the baby, and coloring with Lucy, and watching Ben hold the baby... it was rough. I spent a lot of time this weekend in my own head just pondering things.

I'm days away from sending in my loan paperwork and essentially signing my life away to this career. At least a decade or two of it, anyway. On Friday evening, I spent the end of our dinner and the entire ride home explaining to Ben why I want to do this and why I believe it's what God wants me to do, and the next day I was already thrown back into a whirlwind of doubt again. It's maddening, I tell you! But now that I've been through this cyclical high-and-low thing a few times I'm starting to get the hang of it, and I think I'm beginning to get a little bit of perspective on it all. In my calmer moments, I'm at peace about my career choice. I calmly acknowledge the fact that God is in control, and that to some degree, I too am in control of where my life is going. I don't mean to say that I have control over some areas that God doesn't have control over, just that as far as my career is concerned, I'm not locking myself into any particular lifestyle simply by choosing to become a physician. In my more panicked moments, I'm freaking out about the debt, about the unknown, about being stuck in a rat-race job that leaves me no family time, much less time to keep myself sane. It's starting to feel more and more like my "I don't want to do this" moments are the panicky ones and my "This is right" moments are the calm, peaceful ones. To me, that's a reassurance that God is trying to give me the guidance I've been praying for, by giving me peace about it, and satan is trying to throw me off by causing me to panic at the thought of it all.

So, on to the title of my post... You know what? F THAT. F the insinuation that working moms aren't great moms. F the idea that doctors are too busy for their families. F the fear that I won't be able to find a specialty that makes me happy and allows me to keep my priorities where I want them. I WILL make it work, and I WILL be an excellent mother. I don't care if I have to work part-time or job share - that doesn't bother me a bit, so long as I can pull down the salary we need to get by, and I've been reassured by many professionals woh know what they're talking about that it IS possible to do that. And maybe emergency medicine can't give me that - maybe God has something entirely different for me. I have no idea. But what I do know, at this point in time, is that I feel deep down in my bones that I am supposed to be a doctor, and I trust God with all that that entails. I trust God with my fears, with Ben's fears, with my family, with my kids, with my career, with my finances... with all of it. And to conclude, F the idea that all this makes me naive. I won't accept the idea that expecting to be able to make my own career decisions and expecting to be able to maintain control of my own life is naive. God is in control of my life, and so long as I leave Him in the driver's seat, no career is going to steer me off His path. He's got it.