Basics

It's time to get back to basics, I've decided. There's a lot of superfluous crap in my life. School stress. Money (...or lack there of). Friendships on thin ice. Losses that can't be recouped. Desires that can't be realized (at least not yet). Things I've been wanting to do for months or years yet haven't managed to do. Facebook. E-mail.

It's all just stuff. Extra stuff. The good stuff is bonus, and the crappy stuff really just doesn't need to matter to me. I need to learn contentment. Not just in the sense of learning patience or living with less, but learning to see the "extra" stuff for what it is. Learning to constantly re-focus myself on what really matters, when blessings come my way and when bad things happen. The blessings will feel even more special when I realize how truly "extra" they are - that I don't deserve them and that I only have them because my God loves me THAT much. And the bad things will feel even less significant, when I remind myself that they have no bearing on the basics that sustain my contentment.

I have my God. I have my Ben. I have my family and close friends - the ones whose places in my life will never be in question. I even have some wonderful basic comforts like a roof over my head, good food and central heat - but those things ultimately are extra too. I need to learn to live at peace with all that, so that the stresses of every day life can roll off my back. I have been FAR too stressed out and FAR too unhappy, given the truly blessed state of my life. I hope I can make this realization a reality in my life, STAT.

New Beginnings...?

Here I am, once again, preparing to transition from one course to the next. Cell & Molecular Biology (which I may refer to as CMB) has been a bitch. Most of the material is stuff that, as I've said before, I should already know. SOME of it is new, but most of it is stuff I've learned before. The problem is, I learned it over the course of several years the first time around and didn't have to know ALL of it at once until now. So, you see, this is how an average school-day goes, for me. I get up, I have breakfast and coffee, I load up the days lectures, and I watch. If it's stuff I've learned before, I get VERY easily distracted. I'm quick to log onto Facebook, I check my e-mail 25 times, I browse Amazon, I read people's blogs... and before I know it, the lecture is half over and I haven't REALLY listened. So on other days, when I'm feeling bad about my study habits and trying to feign some level of internal motivation, I actually listen. I sit there through two 50-minute lectures and actually listen and take notes. And it is PAINFUL. I know I knew it once, and I understand it, but it just goes in one ear and out the other. I can't explain why, IT JUST DOES. And by the time I've worked through two lectures, done a few chores around the house, run to Target for some odds and ends, it's maybe 3:30, and I'm ready for a break. So I chill, maybe I watch an episode of something on TV, and then it's 4:30 and Ben will be home soon, so I start dinner, he gets home, we eat, we chat about our days and watch some TV, we go to the gym, we shower, and we go to bed. So, you see, I never actually *studied* anything, I just watched lectures.

So, along comes exam day (*cough*MONDAY!*cough*), annnnnnnnnd I'm screwed. It's like the fact that I already knew this information once works AGAINST me, because I know it's in there somewhere and I don't need to study it as hard as I might study brand new material. This weekend is gonna SUCK, bad. I haven't truly studied anything I've learned since I came back from break, so I'll be about 3 weeks behind to start the weekend. FAAAAANTASTIC. Pray for my poor pitiful soul. Not that I didn't bring this on myself, because I did. But please pray for me anyway.

Next Wednesday begins a new class - "Functional Systems" (aka Physiology). And, just as I thought at the transition between Anatomy and CMB back in November, I'm really hoping to start fresh and do a better job this time around. I have to do SOMETHING, because I have been simply miserable. This entire first semester was just one huge downer - so far medical school has done nothing but make me question my decisions, and cry, and eat. Although I will say it has helped me to change my eating habits for the better, given my new-found knowledge of nutrition, but for a while there I was just straight up EATING. Hence the unacceptable weight gain. ANYWAY, like I said, I have to do SOMETHING. I just don't know what. My motivation level is just SO incredibly low, it's hard to bring myself to "do" anything extra. I REALLY don't want to have to force myself to physically GO to school every day, but I just might have to. Watching lectures at home just doesn't seem to be cutting it. It's just so expensive to GO to school. I pay 80 cents in tolls per day (I know, not a crisis), but I also pay $5 A DAY for parking. That's $100 a month that I don't have (plus the studpid toll)!!! Not to mention the loss of extra sleep time - I'd have to be out of here by 7:15 :'( I know, "cry me a river", say the people with real jobs.

I suppose that I should let my recent success with eating better and exercising serve as inspiration for other areas of my life that need re-vamping as well - starting with school. Something that helps me find the motivation to work harder at life is remembering that in ALL THINGS, we work for the Lord. My body is a temple for the Lord, and I am to take care of it as best I know how. That includes eating right and exercising. And my current "vocation", if you will, is for Him. He brought me here, it is His will for my life, and I am to work "as if for the Lord", because in reality it IS all for Him. While that should be my chief motivation in all that I do, I often end up using it as a back-up plan for those days when I don't care about doing whatever it is I'm doing for my OWN benefit - I just have to remind myself that it's not really for ME anyway. So I'm really hoping that whatever it is that I need to do to get myself back on track with school, applying this principle will help me get there and help me stick with it.

Ugh... this whole thing is turning out to be WAY more difficult than I ever anticipated. Cheers.

On the Record

I just want to go "on record" with the following statement: I will never, never, ever ever ever, EVER, "get wasted", EVER AGAIN. Period.

You know how I know I really mean it this time? Because BEFORE I started drinking last night I said to myself, "thank God I'm making my own drinks - no one will know what's in them and I can totally pace myself". When you're drinking even though you don't particularly "want" to, that's when you know you're over it. And that you're stupid, but that's another subject entirely. I've been "over" my college-style drinking behaviors for quite some time now, and I haven't drank like I did last night in a VERY long time. But for WHATEVER reason, last night I just stopped paying attention. I didn't even realize what I was doing to myself. I made an extremely low-calorie mojito mix and brought light rum so I wasn't too concerned about calorie intake (which would normally slow me down with the beer!), and HOLY CRAP today was rough. No one in their right mind does THAT to their body willingly, and repeatedly. CRAZY PEOPLE do crap like that. And I get such horrendous hangovers - worse than your average hangover. I'm just one of those people that should avoid alcohol at all costs.

I'm not trying to say I'll never taste a drop of alcohol again in my life, because I KNOW that's not true, but I am SOOOOOO done with over-doing it. I'm also not trying to give the impression that I have some kind of alcohol problem or that I do this frequently, I just want the world to hear me say, NEVER AGAIN. And that's all I have to say about that.

I would also like to add that I LOVE MY RAVENS, despite the disappointing end to a great season that came last night. As far as I'm concerned, beating the Raiders in week 16 to send the Steelers to their couches for the playoffs might as well have been our Superbowl - everything else was bonus ;] It's been fun boys. Now please convince Ed Reed to stick around for another season!!!

Life.

First things first... BRING IT, INDY!!!!!!!!
Says Peyton Manning's worst nightmare, Mr. Ed "I eat first-class quarterbacks for breakfast" Reed :] He's definitely my favorite player - I've always been partial to defensive players. Maybe it's because during my formative years as a young football fan, my team had one of the greatest defenses in NFL history. Could be.

Moving right along, I've recently realized that my blog posts haven't really been very informative. I feel like there's a lot going on in my life - at least in my thought life - that I haven't shared. It seems like every time I sit down to write a blog post, I feel like it's not interesting enough so I delete it and go back to whatever I was doing. So today I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to write about what's going on, and if it isn't interesting... well, I apologize for boring you!

School is... well... going. I really can't figure myself out on this front. I am SO incredibly unmotivated. Some days I feel like I live in a jar of molasses. Some days I think I might legitimately benefit from anti-depressants. Not because I'm "sad", per se, but because I just feel SO bogged down. I just DON'T CARE about ANYTHING related to school or medicine or learning. When I think about what else I might do if I decided to leave medical school, I can't even get motivated toward something else! I just don't want to DO ANYTHING!!! I've never felt this way before in my life. I've never been SO incurably distracted, unmotivated and irritated with my educational endeavors. It doesn't help that I spend some appreciable portion of EVERY SINGLE DAY pondering something related to child-bearing. If I'm honest with myself, I wouldn't have kids any sooner than we're currently "planning" to - it's not that. Sometimes I just seriously can't bear the thought of how complicated it will be for me. It's complicated for everyone in different ways, and I try to keep that in mind when I start to get upset about it. It's just hard when I think about how much simpler it could be if I had chosen a different path. And as important as that is to me, it's not just a "oh well, too bad" kind of thought, it's a really upsetting thought. It also doesn't help that we struggle so much to pay our bills, and I know I could go get a job and contribute more if it weren't for school. It's just so stressful, living so tight. And really, sitting around my apartment all day trying to watch these incredibly boring lectures, dreading the days I have to physically GO to school, just counting down the hours til Ben gets home... it gets old. It's already getting SO old. It's just been a rough couple months for me, with respect to school, and it's hard not to question my decisions in the midst of all this unhappiness.

Outside of school, there isn't a whole lot else exciting going on, unfortunately. We keep a relatively lively social life (to the detriment of my grades, but a girl can't just put her sanity on hold for 4 years), but nothing particularly noteworthy is going on. We've been visiting family a lot, enjoying our new little niece Caraline, anxiously awaiting the arrival of our second new niece, hanging out with friends here and there... the usual. Janelle and I are going out this evening to celebrate her birthday, a little late. I'm pretty pumped to have a nice dinner and some drinks and just CATCH UP! Tomorrow night we're going up to PA to celebrate Ben's friend Tom's birthday, and of course cheer on our Ravens! We're pretty excited for that - it's always more fun to watch the game with other people. And hey, it's a 3-day weekend! Of course, my hubby is working for part of the day Monday anyway, since we could really use the holiday pay, and I'll just be catching up on the school work that I probably will have found excuses to avoid throughout the rest of the weekend. And next week will be my LAST week of this God-awful class that I'm in right now - I'll be switching to physiology after this - so hopefully that'll be a POSITIVE change.

On a positive note, we have started eating a lot more healthily AND going to the gym regularly. It's really nice to do this together, since it's always been a solo effort in the past when I've tried to whip my ass into shape. We can sorta use each other as competition, and usually when one of us is feeling less motivated, the other is there to push the straggler out the door at gym time. I'm basically not buying anything that isn't "good for you" at this point. I'm only cooking with whole grain pastas and rices, buying lots of veggies (not all fresh, but the frozen kind that you steam are quite good and inexpensive), and trying to find protein-filled alternatives to the things I'd normally snack on. I happen to be one of those lucky people that actually enjoys hummus, so that's a good one - hummus with fresh raw veggies to dip. Yummm. Campbells Soup-at-hand's are also good - they have several varieties that are 70 or 80 calories and they stick with you pretty well. And after spending last week learning about vitamins (and finding out from a routine doctor visit that I'm vitamin D deficient - you should have your doc check this by the way because it's quite common especially in the winter time), I'm back on a multivitamin too. Hoping that all this puts my body into prime condition to work efficiently and burn some FAT! I can admit, I've gained a full "newlywed 15" since the wedding (plus 2 or 3 pounds!), and it's just not acceptable. I wasn't even in the shape I'd *like* to be in when I got married - I'm hoping to lose a good 20 pounds this year. I'm just so tired of thinking about how I wish I looked, and how I know I COULD look, and doing nothing about it. It's downright depressing, and if I don't do something I'm gonna have to go bankrupt buying new clothes soon because nothing fits right and it's driving me INSANE!!! It's also been good for my mood - working out is a great release and it makes me feel better about myself, despite my sub-par grades and apathy toward my chosen career path (which is otherwise rather depressing!). So, for now, we're back up on the weight-loss wagon and trying desperately not to fall off.

One more thing before I go... I know this is getting to be like the novels of my blogging past... I was considering going back to NIH this summer. Those of you who saw me frequently last summer know how miserable I was toward the end of my year there - I couldn't stand my supervisor, I was completely unmotivated toward the particular project I was working on, I was bored out of my mind (hmmm, sounds like maybe I HAVE felt this way before...). Not to mention the God-awful commute which could be anywhere from an hour and 15 mins to 2 and a half hours one way! But my boss told me when I left that I could come back any time, and when I checked into this year's stipend level for a summer student with my level of education and years of experience at NIH... whew. VERY difficult to turn down. Especially given our current financial situation, THAT MUCH extra money would be pretty sweet. It would be about a 60% raise compared to what I contribute to our finances right now! But I'd spend a good chunk of it on gas (V8 Jeep Grand Cherokee, 106 miles/day, anyone?), and I fear it wouldn't be the sanity-restoring summer break that I know I will so desperately need by then.

BUT, fear not, I had a brainstorm last night that could save me from all that... I'm looking into doing summer research at the Hopkins CF Research Center. I just did a presentation for school on CF, which got me thinking about it, and wondering why I hadn't thought of it before now. I think that it could be a really good change of pace for me, and so rewarding. I know I won't cure CF in one summer, but at least it's work that I have very concrete motivation toward. Plus Hopkins is about 15 minutes away from my apartment :] After e-mailing the director, I found out that they DO have summer research openings, and I'm scheduling an appointment to talk with him about my research interests and possible placement! I'm pretty psyched!!! So I'll be sure to keep you updated on all that. I really have no clue what the pay might be like, though I'm sure it'll be significantly less than at NIH. But really, to avoid that commute and do something I'm really into, I'll take the pay cut. And if you factor in the gas, the difference may not be that substantial. All I want is enough to keep our heads above water. So we shall see!

Alright, if you haven't fallen asleep or quit reading yet, CONGRATULATIONS for making it through this entire post. I'll let ya go ;] Thanks for stopping by!

Amateur Photog... Haha

After an extremely frustrating attempt to do a 2009 recap in photos (very original, I know), I decided that I'd just choose some of my favorite photos from '09 to share instead. Of course, 2009 was a pretty BIG year for me... I got married, I started medical school, I moved away from home and Ben and I created OUR first home together, we adopted two crazy kittens... but Blogger photo uploader would just prefer that I not share that many photos with you today. So instead, I looked through my 2009 photos and picked out some of the ones that I was most proud of, from an artistic perspective. I do love photography, though my camera resources are limited, so I try to take my time and do a good job with it when I can. Most of my photos are just point-and-shoot snapshots of life, but these are the ones that capture a little more than that (from my perspective, at least)...


After a 9-year, storybook romance, Ben and I finally tied the knot in May 2009. Thanks to the incredible generosity of his parents, we spent a glorious week in beautiful Cancun, Mexico. The landscape did the work in this one.

This one is structly for entertainment purposes. There's an entire series of Ben's pool-inspired hair-do's, but I'll spare you the rest ;]

Ben anxiously awaits our turn on the parachute, wiping his sweaty palms and wondering why someone with a fear of heights would put himself through this... again.

From however-many-feet up, admiring our symbols of commitment as we admire the breath-taking scenery of Cancun.

Back to reality, we spent the 4th of July in Ocean City with Tom & Amy for the second year in a row. We decided it will become a tradition. After the tragic loss of their sweet lab-pointer mix, Pinky, Tom & Amy brought home this little bundle of joy, Macky - the newest addition to their family :]

Patroling the bow of "the dog boat", Tomy & Amy's 180-pound great dane Jolly guides us back to the marina after an afternoon of swimming and splashing at the dog beach.

At Ben's 25th birthday party in September, a snapshot of Mike's endless adoration of his lovely new fiance, Sarah. I just love the way he looks at her ;] Warms my heart!

Wedded bliss! My college friends Martina & Tommy became Mr. & Mrs. Cox at the Gettysburg College Chapel on Halloween 2009. No costumes involed ;]

My sweet baby kittens were 7 months old in November. Ray "Lewis" watches over his baby brother from atop a dining room chair.

My sweet baby squidward ("Eddie" Reed) and his endless and endearing shenanigans. Call me a crazy cat lady, but I just can't get enough of him!

In the middle of the Great Blizzard of '09, with a foot of snow on the ground and another foot still to fall, our sweet niece Caraline Faith was born on December 19th. This photo was taken on Christmas Day, at 6 days old. Again, the scenery did the work for this one. I just pushed the button ;]

Our playful and adorable nephew Evan, enjoying some "juicey" on Christmas day. At two years old, he already has the eyes of a heartbreaker!

My little guy making himself useful as a Christmas card star, in front of our Charlie Brown Christmas tree.


So, that's certainly not an exhaustive recap (obviously no wedding photos, since I didn't take any of those myself!), but I can remember enjoying shooting each of those photos because they captured something special to me about 2009. I hope that 2010 brings many more special moments and blessings for us, and I'm already relatively certain that it will. We'll be welcoming another beautiful new niece into the world in April, Em & Josh's first :] We'll be attending at least three weddings (all in the month of June, amazingly enough), which are always full of happy memories and good times! I'll be completing my first year of medical school (I hope...) and THAT may just bring about the party of the century... stay tuned. Who knows what else God has in store for us, but I'm anxious to find out!

Happy New Year (a little late, I know), and best wishes for a memorable 2010!!!

Thankful... pre-Christmas Edition

Tonight, I just wanted to post a quick blurb about the things I'm thankful for (again), because I've just been reminded of several things today.

• I have a new niece coming into the world ANY MINUTE NOW. Not only is that super-exciting for someone like me, who just gets super-excited about babies, but it's a reminder of the MIRACLE that is conception and birth. Being in medical school CONSTANTLY reminds you of all the things that can go wrong - it truly is nothing short of a miracle that everything goes RIGHT so often. For me, the study of the natural sciences has been like a window into the mind of God, and a constant reminder that random happenstance simply is NOT enough to account for the glory of this creation in which we live.

• I have A SECOND new niece coming into the world in a few short months, which is another beatiful miracle waiting to happening (happening as we speak, in fact). And beyond that, these two precious little girls will always have each other, and the example of their mommies who are so close with each other. It's such a beautiful, not to mention ADORABLE scenario for two little girls to be born into. There are so many children who are born into such horrendous circumstances, and I'm just so blessed to watch the children in my family grow and thrive the way that they do.

• Over the past 6 months since I married my sweet husband, I have suddenly become so acutely aware of the way that his sisters have become my own. I've considered them "my sisters" for a long time - Ben and I have been together for 9 1/2 years now (today, in fact!) and they took me in as their own from very early on - but recently something has happened that sent me from "sisters" to sisters. No quotes. I don't know what it's like to actually have siblings, because I never did. But as best I know how, I love these girls as if they were my own sisters - because quite frankly THEY ARE. If anything ever happened between Ben and I, it simply would have NO bearing on the way I feel about them and the amount of time I spend thinking of them, talking to them, praying for them... they are my sisters. I would've KILLED for a sibling when I was growing up, and while I didn't get one then, I got something almost MORE amazing through Ben - sisters that CHOSE to be my sister. That just blows my mind, and it's something I am just so grateful for... I could never fully explain it.

• I woke up this morning to a kiss from my husband, at 4:30 in the morning as he left for work. Unpacking this little moment reveals (a) the tremendous work ethic that my husband has (he is NOT a morning person!), (b) the little things that make my days bright (like little kisses at 4:30am), (c) the fact that I'm 23 and already married to the love of my life, and never had to go searching through the heartbreak and pain that so many people endure before finding their "special someone"... I could go on. But just waking up to a husband who is on his way out the door to make a better life for me gives me goosebumps sometimes. What did I do to deserve that?

• I am currently quite toasty on this 40-degree night, sipping a nice glass of white wine, watching football on my big-screen high-def plasma TV under my cathedral cielings in my beautiful apartment with my two baby kittens wreaking havoc on my lovely christmas tree... I am so blessed with COMFORTS. I just live such a CUSHY life that it makes me wonder how I EVER complain about ANYTHING I have to do.

Anyway, I could go on but for now I just wanted to put those things down on "paper". For now I'm gonna go snuggle up in my warm bed with my warm husband (he really is a FURNACE at night) and reflect on all that I have to be thankful for :)

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Original post title, huh.

Anyway, I just thought I'd post some pics of our first Christmas together :) Our tree is up, our decorations are out, and we've even gotten a little bit of snow! Which is a huge improvement over last year's sorry excuse for a winter. We haven't been skiing/snowboarding in... like... 2 years! I must say that having the tree up has completely changed my study environment - it feels SO freakin' COZY in here! I just LOVE it! I'd leave it up all year long if (a) it wasn't real, and (b) it wouldn't ruin the novelty of having things feel different and special around Christmas time every year.

We did opt for a real tree this year, which actually was not a pain at all - we bought it practically across the street at Lowes (for 45 bucks - not nearly as much as I expected to pay!) and didn't have any trouble getting it inside and put up. The kittens didn't want much to do with it at first(which was actually a good thing, because now they enjoy batting at the low-lying branches and their associated ornaments - which, I might add, are shatterproof). In fact, Lewis was utterly PETRIFIED of it. He hid in our bedroom the entire first evening. He'd creep toward the doorframe, peak around the corner very slowly, catch sight of the tree in the corner and BOLT back into the room. Every time I tried to pick him up and walk him out of the room, as soon as he saw the tree even out of the corner of his eye, he'd start freaking out and leap out of my arms! It was pretty funny. We let them sleep in our bedroom that night so that Lewis wouldn't be trapped out in the rest of the apartment with the giant Christmas Monster. But miraculously, by the next morning he was sitting underneath it and batting at it. Who knows.

Our first ever Christmas tree! We've taken a little off the top since this photo, so the star doesn't stick up quite so high anymore :)

Christmas kitten! Eddie sitting behind me on the couch next to the tree. He's napping now - which would be a much cuter picture but you've probably seen enough pictures of Eddie napping for one lifetime!

Little Lewie, looking festive on the tree skirt!

Our first snow! It was gone by the next morning, but it was pretty while it lasted!

The kittens checking out the white stuff - they've never seen it before!

So, good times at the Bonner house (er, apartment)! We've got a busy weekend ahead filled with fun stuff. The Knapsteins are having a party for everyone who was in Sam & Todd's wedding on Friday, and a party at the Knapsteins is always a great time! Holiday Open House at Mark & Susan's on Saturday - we haven't seen their new house yet, plus Ron & Jeanne and Tom & Amy will also be there! Later that evening we're heading to my Mom & step-dad's to watch the UFC fight (Ben is WAYYYY into UFC these days, if I haven't mentioned that!). Sunday we'll be going to church and attending a 3-hour "Welcome" class - we started going to a new church a few weeks ago and we really like it so far! It's HUGE, which I've actually grown to love in a church - worshipping in a huge crowd like that is really an entirely different and amazing and moving experience. It also allows a certain amount of annonymity, as opposed to a smaller church where "everyone knows everyone". No one really notices when you miss a week, you can be as involved or uninvolved as you want to be, you don't stick out like a sore thumb when you're new or haven't been there in a while... it's really nice. Not that I want to be someone who slips in and out of church without ever saying a word to anyone or ever participating in anything, but it's so nice to be able to do whatever you need or want to do without feeling judged. Churches can feel very judgemental and gossipy (though they really should be the LAST place you'd find those things), and the smaller they get, the worse those things get. This particular church is also very contemporary (everyone is wearing Ravens jerseys and jeans on Sundays, the music is the stuff you'd hear on modern Christian radio, everything is all high-tech) which is obviously appealing to us "younger generation" folk. It's about 15 minutes up 95 from us which is quite convenient, AND they have a 9:50 service which isn't too early to get up for, but still puts us out by 11 - it feels like we still have the whole day ahead of us to get done whatever we need to do! And most importantly, we are so far very impressed with the messages and with the Pastor - it's all very applicable to life and REAL, and in line with my own theological beliefs. My godparents and my uncle and his wife go there too, which is nice. We don't see them that often since it's so big, but it's nice to have someone to meet up with or to help us get plugged into things we're interested in. So anyway, we're definitely making it our "church home".

Well, I suppose that's all I have to say for now! I'll get back to watching Old School with my husband :)