House Stuff

Spent most of today cleaning out our garage (which was previously full of moving boxes and random crap) so that I could store a bunch of D's random stuff (which was previously in boxes all over our study and bedroom) so that I could actually clear space in the bedroom and office for us to live and rearrange the furniture as necessary.  As this sort of task would have probably killed me to perform by myself, my mother was kind enough to come over and help, especially with the de-spidering of the garage.  The office and bedroom are beginning to look like they belong in a real house of a real adult person, which is a huge relief to me.  I was beginning to think that this house would forever be just an extension of the proverbial college apartment.  Also, I think I've picked a paint color for the bedroom, so hopefully by the end of this week that might get painted and pictures can go up on the wall and such.  If that all happens...by God, I think it'll be pretty much set with what we can do for now.  Eventually, obviously, there will be many more updates...but that's for when we actually have cash.  Right now I'm just hoping that we don't max out the credit card before the loans come in on the 15th.  

In other news, I finally finished all of the requirements for immunizations prior to school starting today...that only took about three weeks.  Finally, after two blood draws for chickenpox and hep B titers, I can call it a rest.  Still hard to believe that orientation is less than two week away.  And the olympics are coming!!  For a brief side note:  I LOVE the olympics.  I get warm fuzzy feelings when I see all the heartwarming stories of athletes against the odds and people breaking world records and thinking about my first major olympic memory of Kerri Strug vaulting on one foot.  It seriously gives me goosebumps, so the ability to DVR all of the coverage and use it as a carrot to keep myself going in the first few weeks of school will be absolutely fabulous.  

Back Home Again...

Just got back last night from a few days vacation with the family down in Florida.  D was upset because he couldn't go (couldn't get more than a week off from work, and the whole honeymoon thing kind of ate that up...)--he worries a lot that my family will always take precedence over us as a family unit.  Problem is...my family is everything to me.  My mom is practically my best friend, and I just relax when I'm with them so much more than I often can at home what with all of the worries about school or things that need to be done around the house or finances.  I feel bad that he thinks the way he does, but sometimes I feel worse that I want to spend so much time with my family.  

On a lighter note, the beach was fun.  Got my orientation packet in the mail along with my marriage license, so now I can spend the next week trying to get my name changed, ordering books and scrubs, finishing thank you notes, and hauling ass to get the house put back into respectable shape.  The back yard looks like a jungle currently, and the inside isn't a whole lot better.  Stands to be a busy week.  

Can we fix it?

Apparently, yes we can.  Almost two months to the day since we closed on the house, we finally went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of paint and supplies to actually start fixing up the house.  We also ordered a new stove with the gift card D's (that would be Awesome Husband) parents got us for the wedding--thank God, the stove that came in this house is so old I'm constantly afraid it's going to explode.  Seriously, you can't even see the difference on the knobs between 350 and 400.  I'm not much of a cook, so this definitely doesn't help the effort not to burn things.  

But the paint!  So exciting because now we can finally paint the study room and set it up with our myriad bookshelves, which in turn means that I can start looking for a desk and setting up my study space prior to the start of school.  Once that's done, hopefully we'll move on to the bedroom and get that done before August as well so everything will be mostly put together.  

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3...

So...of all the advice I've heard about going into medical school, probably one of the first and most oft-repeated was the admonition to write.  Didn't matter what, didn't matter how, but almost everyone suggested keeping some kind of journal, if for no other reason than to give myself a way to look back over what are about to be some of the craziest years of my life.  And so, without further ado, I began this blog.  The name, the balancing act, should be relatively self-explanatory to most...mainly because the second-most spouted advice I've gotten about medical school is to try to keep a balance (as difficult as that seems to be...) between school and life and everything else you're interested in.  I have a feeling this will probably be relatively difficult for me, even as compared to others...right now I live in a small town with my entire extended family within about a ten minute drive, I just got married and bought a house, which we're in the process of renovating, I coach kids' gymnastics classes at the same gym where I trained growing up, and oh...I'll be starting med school in a month.  A decent amount of things to keep balanced, to say the least.  As far as the whole "stay on the beam" thing...well, that goes back to the balancing.  I was always a balance beam gymnast--for whatever reason, I found it the most fun and easiest of all the events, although this is generally not how most people feel.  At one particular competition--one of my last, as well--I remember my coach coming up to me right before beam, waving frantically to give me one final piece of advice before the routine.  "Becs," he whispered, "You have to remember one thing...stay on the beam."  So that's what it's all about I guess...staying balanced, staying on the beam, getting through, winning, conquering the world...oh wait, scratch that last.  (My husband is probably coming out in me there, what with his penchant for playing games like Risk and Age of Empires.)  But anyway, now at least you know where the ideas for the blog came from.  Now, for a brief introduction of the players involved:

Becs--that's me.  For the sake of anonymity, not my real name, but you probably could've guessed that.  As mentioned above, I'll be starting MS1 in August at a large academic medical center in the midwest, only a few miles from where I grew up.  Went to college not too far away, majored in biology and religious studies, very interested in medical ethics.  Right now, I kind of want to be a pediatrician, but only time will tell what will actually happen.  Also as mentioned previously, I used to be a gymnast, still coach little kids' classes on occasion for extra cash.  Just got married, bought a house, now working on trying to get it all set up and painted and put together before school starts and my life is consumed.  (With that in mind, a desk should probably be a high priority...) Awesome Husband and I have the World's Most Awesome Dog, who also happens to be the world's furriest dog and who is cause for a great deal of time spent vacuuming.  I love Italian food, traveling, photography, white wines, shopping, video games, and wandering aimlessly through bookstores.  

Awesome Husband--the guy I married about two weeks ago.  He's pretty cool.  He works a lot, trying to pay the bills while I'm in school and leeching off of society with all my student loans, and even though it's definitely not easy I have to admit that one of the reasons he has been dubbed Awesome is because he rarely complains about the fact that he's putting off *his* schooling until I'm out so that at least one of us has a means of financial stability.  He enjoys soccer, traveling, video games (more so than I--he's pretty much a twelve year old when it comes to computer nerdiness), history, archaeology, and reading almost anything to do with ancient Rome.  He still opens doors and buys flowers on occasion.  We've been together for almost 6 years, engaged for a year, married for two weeks.  

There you have it.  Much more excitement to come in the ensuing weeks as preparation for the ultimate timesuck begins.