My life looks very different now than what it did 5 weeks ago. And, 5 weeks before that, I was in another galaxy. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but these last couple months have been more of a startling transition than going from college and a summer off to matriculating the first year of medical school. I will say though, this transition has brought much more enjoyable changes.
So let’s start back at the end of April/beginning of May during board exam preparations when I deleted every social media app and other time-sucking things from my life and moved in with my best med school friends; it simultaneously became a huge load off my back having awesome roommates and being in a more nurturing place at home, but then it got a whole lot more stressful because Macy and I needed to buckle down and study. Hard.
This was 6 weeks before my big test, and classes were already over to give us time to study for boards on our own. (Before I go on, for all you non-medical people- passing this test is crucial to moving onto your “clinical” years of medical school and an absolute necessity for getting the big D.O. after my name. Residency programs look at this test score and assess your worthiness, and if getting into medical school isn’t hard enough, I daresay this was about 437 times harder than anything I had to do to get in.) Anyway, I took a practice test that the school required we take to make sure we were ready to take the exam and pass it.
I was not at a passing score at that test, 5 weeks out from D-day. I’ve debated writing about it because it feels like a big deal to talk about scores. This test and the months of preparation leading up to it are such a big part of my life right now and no one shares their scores except with the closest of people. Still, I want to share at least some of my story for the same reasons- because it is such a big part of my life and I learned so much.
I was devastated about this practice test score for days. I curled up in my mom’s lap and cried. My dad bought me a Quiktrip pretzel and told me to take a step back and maybe talk to the school about pushing everything back a few months. I cried to an attending physician in his office- the medical school equivalent to calling your teacher “mom”. Still, I decided to buckle down and move forward as planned and the plan was to pass at all costs.
I knew balance was key and I needed to stay sane with breaks and hobbies, etc, but I also wasn’t stupid. I knew my “studying status quo” of cooking a nice dinner, running 4-6 miles 5 times a week and taking Netflix breaks- even without the social media- wasn’t going to cut it. With a very important deadline, some more sacrifices had to be made.
I think I ran a total of four times in that last month. I watched one 22 minute show at the end of my study days. I started drinking Ensure nutrition shakes for meals. I lost 20 pounds in the 6 months before my boards, which is not a healthy amount for me by the way. I gave my dog back to my mom for a number of weeks. I went to an 8-5 board review class and stayed. awake. for. the. whole. entire. week. I hit the books hard and cried and panicked and learned more than I have ever learned in my entire life. I was also very miserable and alone for the majority of every single day for those six weeks.
I took two more practice tests before my exam, and I surprised myself, getting significantly better each time. I didn’t really know what to expect as far as what kind of progress was possible that close to a test date, but I did it. As well as I was doing, my anxiety lurked in the shadows during every minute I wasn’t studying. I would go get dinner with Dru and inside my heart was pounding, saying “You’re going to fail because you didn’t bring your book with you.” In the shower every night, “You don’t deserve a break with scores this low.” Laying in bed, biting my lips until they bled, texting my family and anyone else that would listen to try to get any sort of 5 second reassurance where I didn’t feel like I was going to vomit my esophagus up into my mouth. The harder I studied, the more I feared I would not pass.
Being naturally high strung, having anxiety, and a having healthy dose of fierce test anxiety to boot, I fully expected to need a dart gun to feel calm on test day. The night before, I took a Benadryl and a melatonin at 6 PM just to cover my bases. I added an ice pack on my head and a heating pad on my feet for good measure. I was out by 7:30PM. I woke up that next day and grabbed my packed lunch and rode with Macy to the testing center as we were taking it on the same day. I felt like everything was going to be okay. I got low on time during the first four hours, and I had never needed extra time before. Still, I didn’t feel nauseous. Even during lunch, when my mind was able to wander, I didn’t ever feel like it wasn’t going to be okay like I had been feeling for the past 6 weeks. Macy and I finished and went home- together, relieved, overwhelmed and exhausted- where my sweet boyfriend had cleaned my house and got me a couple precious happy gifts. Still, it would be another 6 weeks before I knew for sure I could take a breath.
In that 6 weeks I spent a lot of wonderful, mostly stress-free time with my family, roomies, and Dru. I learned Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Some of us went to the lake and saw lots of med school friends that we hadn’t really been able to let loose with really since orientation before first year. It was sweet, sweet relief to my tired, studied-out soul. Memories were made that I know I’ll cherish forever.
And then we started rotations. Possibly the most daily rewarding thing I’ve ever been privileged to be a part of. This useless noggin full of jumbled up, color-coded notes and random lectures finally has a use and can make heads or tails out of what’s actually wrong with my patients! (most of the time.) It is much easier to read medical things at night and on the weekends while being able to put a real patient’s face to the condition I need to learn more about.
I got my scores back last week and I was mostly pleased with the results. In my Type A hindsight, I like to think I could have done more and gotten an even better score by tweaking some of my preparation, but I do I know I did my best and really got a much needed confidence boost out of finding out that my best was good enough this time. Medical education can be extremely taxing in the self-doubt department and make you feel like you’re failing all around because it is so all-encompassing, all-consuming. This was not one of those times.
If you didn’t want to read the whole thing and scrolled down to the end here; I can really sum it all up by saying how extremely blessed I am to be in a career with these sorts ups and downs. Where the rewards are that much sweeter because of the trials. I can focus now on being the face-to-face, compassionate, knowledgable, doctor now that that pesky test is in my past; thank you Jesus.
I’m also lucky because of everyone that brought me meals (thanks, mom), sent me encouraging texts, cupcakes, edible arrangements, Starbucks, and hugs. My roommates really pulled together and helped me get through, while also studying and working really hard themselves. My family prayed for me and supported me emotionally and financially and recruited others to pray as well. My school faculty and classmates supported me and gave encouragement, resources, advice and kicks in the pants where needed. Dru loved me, taught me a lot of test material, and listened to me whine repeatedly; he did dishes, cooked meals and absolutely knocked his own test out of the park all at the same time.
I don’t remember where I read it or if it popped in my head or where I got it, but somewhere along the line, I told my family that I had a mantra for this seemingly insurmountable test. I started telling myself “You are overestimating the problem and underestimating yourself.” It sounds crazy at this point in my life that I would still be crippled at times with self-doubt and confidence when it comes to my ability to belong to this schooling and eventual career, but I do. Even after I got accepted to medical school, if you had asked me to look at a future hologram snapchat video of me seeing patients competently and happily coasting into the start of third year in July 2016, I would have said an incredulous, dumbfounded, “No, that can’t be me.”
It blows my mind, in the best of ways.
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2nd Year Rut
I wanted this blog to be real. Honest. No sugar coating it.
Med school sucks sometimes. There I said it.
Its three days into a new semester and I’ve already hit a wall so hard that I can’t even sleep. Usually when I don’t want to study, I can sleep, or at least binge watch something while simultaneously “candy crushing” until sleep finds me. Here I am, though- its 2 AM and I’m Facebook stalking pictures of myself while I was in college, feeling sorry for myself.
Something is off. And it has been for a while.
I feel happy each day. I wake up, I eat, I laugh, I study, I see my friends, I sleep. Even my family is always close by when I need them.
But, after looking at my own pictures on my feed, I see I’m not even the girl I was a year ago. That girl was “pinch me” happy to be in medical school. That girl lived to go into school each day and learn. That girl was running everyday. She loved going out, even on weeknights- regardless of the sleep she’d lose- just to be with her new friends, gain the life experiences.
I loved my first year of medical school. It changed my life in all aspects for the better.
Shortly after first year started, an older gentleman in a restaurant overheard me using “first year” and “second year” terminology and leaned over and said “You must be in law school, using those words.” I smiled and proudly said, “No sir, I’m in medical school.”
“My mistake,” he smiled, “Congratulations then.” My “thank you” to him was heartfelt and beaming with pride. I was passionate that I was finally where I had wanted to get to all these years.
Last year, it was this all-consuming-love-of-my-life and I couldn’t talk about anything else because I was so enthralled.
Now, I’m this 15lb. heavier zombie, dragging my sedentary body around with my arms in front of me growling and yelling “SLEEP!!!! Where is my sleep?” and feeding on any friends and family nearby, sucking them into my darkness whenever possible.
I don’t want anything to do with going to class or shoving any more knowledge into my haggard, feeble, and engorged brain. Hanging out with friends? Forget about it. The first thing I do after class is come home, throw my jeans on the floor and sit in bed. I study when I have to and do anything else besides school that I can find when I don’t have to.
My best friend asks me how school is going “Horrible,” I say. “can we talk about something else?”
So tell me, which girl do you want to be your doctor in a few years?
I’m not the type to squander this opportunity. I truly, deeply want you to know that I know I should be more grateful. I know I am extremely privileged to be able to pursue this profession. I just happen to feel like its costing me a lot in this season of my life. I know these feelings are normal too. I know I’m human, but I hate the fact that I am already this burned out and broken down by my medical education. It’s hard, though. Its hard to go back to the honeymoon phase when you’ve seen medical school in the light of day.
When you’ve had to miss birthday parties.
When you’ve had to tell your nieces that you can’t make it to dinner.
When your jaw is throbbing from clenching it when stressed.
When you miss those concerts with your friends.
When you feel 80 years old for wanting to sleep at 7:30 PM and you are only 23.
When you have to start studying for a $600 test 6 months in advance.
When you want to be active and run and play and shop and dance and stay up until 5AM with your girlfriends.
When you want to be sore and tired from all the things you did that day, but instead you are sore from sitting on your leg too long and you have a hand cramp from writing too much and you are tired from straining your eyes.
All for a potential illness you have not yet learned in a future patient you have not met, in a clinic you cannot picture. There’s no such thing as instant gratification in med school. I have only a far off hope that someday, some rewarding case will instantly make it all worth while. Do you see what I mean?
In undergrad, I was very wary to not use the term burned out whenever I was frustrated because I knew how much longer I had to go.
But this…there is no other word for this than burn-out. I flailed through last semester and faked it til I made it but three days in to my second semester of my second year and I am having some serious trouble.
The worst part is- I don’t have a solution.
I’m struggling. I’m doing my best. I try to find the good. I don’t let comparisons to my awe-inspiring friends and classmates steal my joy. I stay disciplined to my studies. I keep my head down and work. I just keep swimming.
I guess I know I’m doing something right when I wouldn’t trade this crappy 2nd year rut, for any other experience anywhere else.
What a fun couple days it has been. It feels like its been a week since I’ve posted!
So orientation on the first day included a big volunteer event they do every year mostly run by students. They split us up into groups and we went around Tulsa to various organizations and helped them out with whatever they needed. I met a lot of great people and laughed a ton! The school fed us breakfast and lunch and gave us a volunteer t-shirt! Woo! I love new t-shirts.
The second year’s put on a mock lecture to show us what NOT to do. They crumpled chip bags, asked “Will this be on the exam?” repeatedly to the professor, had their cell phones playing youtube videos during class, one guy even brought a freakin’ blender and turned it on in the lecture hall. It was pretty dang funny. It felt like a very OBU thing to do, so I was glad to see them having fun and being ridiculous about it.
Overall, the experience felt a little like camp, but I was glad for the relaxing environment to get to know people in and truly enjoyed getting to know my classmates. I picked up my white coat and scrubs they give us for free, and then went home where (some) of my nieces were waiting for me. My family and I went out to dinner and then shopping that evening so it was a great day in my books!
this idea to take a “first day of school picture” was given to me as a joke sort of by my own doctor but I actually think its a good idea to see how much more haggard my appearance gets each year 🙂 My mom thought it was cute too of course!
The white coat ceremony was a blast. And if I hadn’t been so crazy giddy about the whole experience actually occurring, I would have cried. I thought the ceremony was extremely well done. It felt official but still warm and friendly. They filed us in to the auditorium after the audience was seated and just walking in with my white coat draped over my arm, I got the warm fuzzies and just felt extremely accomplished. We were joking around in line saying how the whole ceremony feels so misguided since all we have done thus far is gone to ONE DAY of orientation. But still, it gets you excited about what is to come and builds your confidence and pride. My sister Stacie in Arizona was watching the live stream online which made me extremely happy, and Zach and Jenna both got to come to watch. I have the best family and friends!
It was pretty hilarious once I was “coat-ed” to watch the struggle that is having-someone-else-put-your-jacket-on-you. You’d think it would be easy, but it most certainly is not. You have to shake their hand, give them your jacket, slip into it while they’re holding it out, fix your hair after, take a picture, say thank you… its exhausting and requires a great deal of focus. So much so that I don’t remember walking across the stage because I was so focused on making my fine motor skills work properly at each little step of the process. Hopefully mine looked smooth. I do remember that I was ready to take the picture, but the professor was still fixing my collar. Oh well. Whatever trauma it caused me was gone when I took the Oath and filed out to more applause. I still feel warm and happy inside!
My posse and I went out to brunch afterwards, so I was fine by then.
Here are some pictures!
FRIENDS!
MOM!
NIECES
Well folks, as much as I love writing, when life comes a-knockin’ unfortunately the blog takes the beating.
This week I went for a last minute lake cabin retreat with two girlfriends from OBU. We had a wonderful time! We used floaties to lay out and tan on a very calm, clear lake. We partook in hot tub time, ate, played board games, attempted to fish, laughed, laid in a hammock, and even kayaked. It was a little vacation I didn’t even know I needed. It came at the perfect time too. Right before I left, I realized I had a little email conundrum with medical school where I realized I wasn’t getting all the emails I should have. (I should have known, no wonder I hadn’t heard about orientation and the white coat ceremony yet!) Once I straightened out the correct email with the administration, I was forwarded a flood of information including my test/class schedule, orientation schedule, info on becoming a student ambassador, and most importantly a self-study block of a class that has already begun! Whoa. Who knew medical school started the summer before?! Since I was on vacation though, I anxiously tucked them away for reading and absorbing as soon as I got back on Thursday.
Our view of the lake from the backyard of the cabin
I would love to share the scheduling and everything I will be up to this fall since that is a lot of what I have been curious about for so long. Questions like, “How grueling is it really?” “What is the day to day schedule like?” Unfortunately, I don’t think sharing these google docs on the interwebs for all to see is something that I can do. You see, every medical school is different and takes pride on their exact brand of medical education- how it is structured, set up and scheduled. So giving that information away feels a little like copying something that isn’t mine. As for MY schedule, daily life, opinions, and whereabouts- I’ll be glad to share those as much as I can.
Also, as I begin my medical education, please take the time to read my disclaimer.
This class that has already started (and I am already behind in!) is called Expert Skills and the information we have to read is mostly about personality types and how it affects your learning style/how you can study better once you know your type. I think its really helpful and it is a great idea to finally understand why I do so bad on multiple choice tests! Ugh! There are also a lot of tips on how to overcome and learn other styles of learning so that it fits with what comes easiest to you. Already I feel like I’m being taken by the hand (figuratively) and being given the tools to succeed instead of being worked into burnout, then drowning and flailing on my own.
The professor knows that I am behind and highlighted specific phrases in his email like “Don’t get overwhelmed” and “Don’t feel alone, just feel energized.” Things that were personal and helpful to me instead of just “Here are all the documents you need, figure it out and turn it in when you’re done.”
This class will also meet during the semester and we will progress into how to study for multiple choice exams like the boards and also how to learn best while on clinical rotations. I’m excited!
I can now happily say that the study room is done! It is so beautiful and I’m in love and obsessed with it. And I have already been using it thanks to my pre-medical school homework and blogging! I love all the handmade details and chic vintage feel.
The view from the door into the study
Guest bed
Artwork and coffee cart
My cart even has a slide out tray that I can hide my K-cups in!
Right shelf includes vintage medical books, diploma, family pictures and school supplies hidden in cute baskets!
Desk I made back in January!
Left shelf has the printer, modem and cleverly hidden wifi with more books, stationary and pictures
My very own “Command Center” where I can write out the weeks tasks and look at more pretty artwork. The board is homemade. We bought sheet metal, framed it, painted it and then used dry erase magnets to make a schedule. Basically the same idea as one I found on younghouselove.com – a great DIY blog!
Plush rug with a comfy chair and side table for reading and browsing the internet
My mom painted the bird. I thought it was a sweet touch
Sharpie trees on burlap squares. Those were a lot of fun to draw
I love the room in low light at night too with just the desk lamp and the string lights above the bed on. It feels very peaceful.
Sigh. I’m obsessed.
I worry about big things, like about the future. I worry about small things, like about not finishing all the summer reading I wanted. I worried when I was 9 and had no legitimate concerns. I worry now when every decision feels so pertinent. I worry about serious things like the environment. I worry about stupid things like having white teeth.
I worry about my family. I worry for their health and happiness. I worry about about their worries. I worry about their sadness. I worry about their foot fungus. I worry about their flaky patches of skin. I worry about their backs, their diets, their sore throats. I worry about my sisters. I worry about depression returning, looming in the sky like a big thunderhead that just passed over us. I worry about my nieces. I worry for them because its so hard to be a girl. I worry because its so hard to grow up and grow up right. I worry because things go wrong. I worry for them because there are hurts I can’t hide from them. I worry that they will see my worry because I want them to know how blessed they are and I’m worried my worry will make them think otherwise. I worry about them when I start medical school. I worry that they’ll think I won’t have time for them.
I worry about my friends. I worry that I’ll disappoint them. I worry that they won’t get everything they want for their lives. I worry about the hurt they will have to endure if they don’t. I worry about love. I worry that I don’t have a clue. I worry that I won’t have time to have a family. I worry that I’m not good enough. I worry that I’m screwing up. I worry that things won’t work out even though I know they will.
I worry about medical school. I worry that I’ll flunk out. I worry that I won’t make friends or won’t have time to. I worry that I’m not cut out for it. I worry that I’ll be incompetent or embarrass myself. I worry that I won’t like it. That I won’t want to study. I worry that I’ll worry more than I already do. I worry that it won’t be everything I wanted it to be. I worry that I will have done all this for nothing. I worry that I’ve made my non-existent career more important than people.
I worry about cancer. I worry about diabetes. I worry about heart disease. I worry about death and disease. I worry about pregnant women. I worry about babies. I worry about obesity. I worry about families. I worry about women in more dire circumstances than I can even imagine. I worry about our nation’s healthcare system. I worry about mental illness. I worry about people who don’t know better. I worry about people that do know better. I worry about vaccines. I worry about abortion. I even worry about the overuse of antibacterial hand soap. I worry about the food we put in our mouths. I worry about business, ethics, medicine, politics, immigration, gender roles, and society because all these things play into our health. I worry that we won’t be able to fix it all. I worry that I won’t even be able to do my part.
I worry that the worries I have listed here don’t even scratch the surface of what I worry about. I worry that I won’t ever stop worrying. I worry that someday the burdens I have for people, the stress that I feel will shut me down into a deep dark place, like I’ve seen worry do to people before.
But most of all, I worry that someday I won’t worry about these things anymore.
I’ve posted about being an aunt before and you can read about my five nieces on my family page, but this is more of a separate issue that irks me.
Disclaimer: Perhaps there are different community/family/church/whatever dynamics that I have not experienced. I would certainly not want someone to never experience the joy of a family bond even if their mom, dad, aunt, brother, etc. was not blood-related. I have also had friends whose family was like a second home to me and I have had friends that jokingly walked into my house and said “Hi Mom” to my mom, but here’s what I’m thinking.
As an aunt, I would find it offensive for someone else- to call my girls their niece. It would discredit my bond with them, especially as an aunt who lives far away from them. Especially when they are young, its hard enough for them to understand that I am their mommy’s sister and that Gramma and Grandpa are our Mom and Dad, and how important those bonds are. It hasn’t happened to me that I’m aware, I just think it would make me sad.
I would liken it to someone telling a friend that they were their “sister” in front of their real sister. “Like a sister”, would be more true. I would be fine if the girls said someone “was like an aunt to them.” I would be happy that they had so many people in their life that love them like I do. But there is something about saying someone is blatantly “your brother, your aunt, etc.” People that don’t know any better instantly relate that person to the meaning of a family bond and its not true.
Maybe I’m being petty and jealous, but just from a loving, young, cool aunt’s perspective-
parents- watch who you let your kids call family and
friends of people with kids- watch what you ask those kids to call you
And now I’m interested to see how other aunts out there and my sisters feel about this.
Ahhh, it feels good to be home. Mostly.
First of all, I want to thank so many of you for stopping by on my page! On my stats, I could tell people were checking into my homepage a lot more than usual. It could have been a fluke, but it made me excited to be able to post again. I didn’t have wifi and we were eating walking around and doing various concert things an awful lot for me to do much posting.
Currently, I am in sitting in bed with a mess of crap all over my room to unpack.
Some things I am not ready to face though. I am refusing to take off the most comfortable merch sweatshirt I got from Needtobreathe’s merch manager, and I have not removed my mascara fully in over 6 days. At this point it just sort of crumbles off when it dries out enough and then it falls into my eyes and becomes rather painful. I’m a stubborn lady though and I’m just not ready to go there.
Still, I must accept on some level that vacation is over. The self-tanning lotion has all but rubbed off, and my blisters from walking around the city in new shoes (bad horrible idea) are healing nicely.
Last Thursday, I hustled around Tulsa getting stuff done before the trip. I had to pick up Dani at 4. I got to her apartment/work, got her keys and got to work terrorizing her cats loading up her stuff into my car. We got on the road and quickly tired of any music that wasn’t “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea.
In Springfield we stopped for dinner at Hebrews Coffee. We found it on Urbanspoon. Sandwiches and coffee were exactly what we needed to get us the next three hours up the highway to St. Louis. I got a chicken caesar wrap and it was the best one I’ve ever had. I wanted a Hazelnut iced coffee to go too; they didn’t have hazelnut syrup but they make their own almond syrup in-house so I got that and it was the best thing I have ever tasted.
Selfie Time
Fun fact- a guy that worked there was wearing a needtobreathe shirt. This was the look on my face when he said he wasn’t going to the show the next night.
Back on the road… More “Fancy”
We got to #stl and went to our hotel in the Central West End/Forest Park neighborhood. As it turns out this is right in a network of hospitals, medical centers, medical/pharmacy schools so it was cool to see all the apartments, medical institutes, and stuff nearby.
The neighborhoods were very quaint, well-lit, and cute so we felt comfortable walking around after midnight, seeing sites like these.
Of course, at night it looked more like this
(These people take much better pictures than I do on my phone)
There were a lot of cute patio cafes with cute white lights strung, but nothing struck our fancy to eat so we kept on walking.
We went back to the hotel, I took a shower, and went to bed; ready for a day of Needtobreathe when we woke up.
I’ll stop there.
ADD Moment Change of subject.
On my list of things to do this summer, I have that I want to do a juice cleanse. Well, what better time to do that than right after vacation (read: eating out all the time)?
Plus, all I wanted to eat on my trip was bananas anyway. How weird, right?
So, right when I got back into T-Town, I stopped at the grocery store and got stuff to make my last meal dinner and dessert for my parents and I. I noticed that Target had a particularly wonderful selection of produce. I freaking loaded that cart. Seriously I’ve never bought so much fruit in my life.
So, 3 day DIY juice cleanse starts tomorrow.
Why?
1. It’s summer
2. I love fruit
3. I’ll try anything once
4. I’m interested to see if it changes the way I feel. For instance, I think it will make me feel hungry 🙂
5. I have no major plans/events this week
6. I’m young and I can do weird crap like this
Other details, things to keep in mind…
If you look into juice cleanse you will see that the lemon-water-honey-cayenne is a popular one, but for me it’s just not feasible. I have pretty quick metabolism and running means I have to have calories or it would just be a 3 day-headache-y-jitter-y mess.
Then, there are the online juice cleanses where they send you each day’s juices to your door. Sounds awesome right? Well, it runs you about $10 a bottle. 6 juices a day means $60 on food a day times 3 days =$180. Mama no likey. Enter, the DIY Juice Cleanse!
Obviously this diet is not sustainable or healthy for any amount of time, but spending $180 on food for three days isn’t something I even did on vacation. Incorporating fruits and veggies is something I want to work on and $10 for juice isn’t the way I ever want to do it so I will also be working on a cost breakdown and see if this much fruit/veggies actually costs that much and if eating healthier really is more expensive. Pound for pound though, I got A LOT of food.
Granted, these companies juices are very good quality and have a lot of ingredients I, as a novice juicer will not be using. Parsley, ginger, etc. Also, I only got organic produce when it was available and priced reasonably.
I’ll do a breakdown of my juices and prep later but I basically have 5 juices that I will drink everyday along with as much water as I want. Then I have a 6th backup juice that is different every day for the times when I’m dying of starvation and want a Quiktrip Pretzel.
This was my Target Haul, we’ll see how this goes.
My dad laughed when I told him this was happening.
#longhairdontcare
Fun Fact: The cashier at Target asked me what fruit my mango was.
My best friend and I leave on our trip to Chicago tomorrow. I am flat out, beyond excited. I have a big folder of all of our hotel reservations, concert tickets, addresses of places we want to visit, restaurants we have to try, and so on. I just hope we can fit it all in.
Posting may be light while we are on the trip but I’ll give a full recap of where we went when we get back. Our hotel charges $15 a day for wi-fi so I doubt I’ll even take my laptop or be able to post much. Ain’t nobody got money for that.
Recently, I have had a rather demanding and constant craving for iced coffee, so I’ve been spending $4.85 every single day while I’m out and about. I really hate it especially since I can make my own iced coffee, but gah, Starbucks’ version is just so dang good and refreshing for running errands. 
Source
I have to break this habit. I’ve even become one of those snobs when ordering it all special and professional. “Hi, I need a grande nonfat iced white mocha with no whip.” Who the heck am I?!
So, it looks like all of my money on this trip will be going toward parking and coffee. #Chicagolyfe
Here it is folks. The last remnants of my senior year of college. Woah.
My sisters, mom, and I did most of the party prep ourselves. We ordered 20 ml Lure-Loc syringes, a set of 3 Ehrlenmeyer flasks, 50 urine sample cups, and a set of 6 plastic beakers all from Amazon and tried to incorporate a science/medical theme throughout the party.
We got back from our camping trip and had a lot of fun. Two things.
1/Everything takes forever with kids.
2/Kids make it more fun.
The sun was hot, the water felt good, and I’m now more thankful for things like toilets, netflix, and chapstick always being close at hand. Those survival reality shows where you strand yourself out in the heat somewhere? Yeah, I wouldn’t make it a day without shade and chapstick.
I had several halfway done projects at home waiting for an empty house (read: no crazy nieces running rampant around here)- so I was sort of preoccupied with getting back to my regular boring life of failed pinterest projects- when I got the following message and realized that my amazing Chicago road trip with Dani is like 5 days away. Woah. I don’t even know what it is in Chicago that I want to do!
I did some preliminary research and discovered that I probably should have started doing this months ago. For one thing, our hotel’s parking is $65. Another problem is that pretty quickly I read that driving/parking in downtown is pretty impossible. And… dun dun dun… everything we are doing is in downtown. Our concert venue and hotel are in walking distance, but there ISN’T ANY WAY IN ANY WORLD THAT I WOULD PAY $65 TO PARK MY CAR. I found some parking apps that give places to park a bit cheaper, but I have no idea how their public transportation works (or if its safe or for poor people like it is here) so I’m sort of freaking. There are a lot of logistics to work out.
It’s weird seeing the difference in family vacations versus now planning my own. When I’m with my family, I do zero planning, zero logistics, I don’t even think I helped cook the food. I’m just this awkward semi-adult floater that doesn’t play like a kid or pitch in like an adult. Oops. Now with my own, I don’t mind getting super prepared, printing all the tickets, calling ahead for reservations, and figuring out where the heck a girl’s supposed to park.
You can see it as good or bad. Maybe I’m finding out that I can take care of the details well on my own. Or maybe it means that I’m lazy and only do it when forced and no one else is there to do it for me. Whichever way, I guess we’ll see how this road trip goes and then decide if I’m capable.
Who knows, I may spend all my money on parking and not be able to make it home.
And, speaking of failed pinterest projects… check in tomorrow to see some pics of my graduation party.
Hint… I tried to make these
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