It's Showtime!!!

The gorgeous ceiling in the lobby of the Women's Hospital

Hey Ya'll!!! (In case you were wondering, I'm a Carolina southern belle now...)

The last week and a half have been a whirlwind!

Pause. I'm still in awe at the fact that I am on a residency composite picture!!!

If you follow me on Instagram, you are probably up to speed on the most recent events. To summarize, my co-interns and I are now finished with our EPIC training, week-long OBGYN orientation, and tomorrow is the first day of "Buddy Week"!!!  Buddy week is like the best thing ever, because it allows the newbies to shadow the current interns on their last week as interns in order to see how things are done. Each one of us will be starting on different rotations/teams, and I am starting on Gynecologic Oncology. Even though I am super nervous, I am so excited to get started. My team already has reached out to me and they seem great!

This weekend flew by...per usual.  Friday evening was Chief Roast - when the residents honor the graduating class by recounting their years in the program with jokes/skits/great stories. It was a great event :-) Then Saturday evening was the program-wide graduation banquet. Although the fourth years and graduating fellows were the guests-of-honor, the new interns were recognized multiple times and were even presented with gifts (including our adorable new surgeon caps made by one of the second year's mom)! It was so sweet... I love my new intern class and the program as a whole is filled with great people I can't wait to get to know. It's going to be an awesome first year!

Me and my new boos!!!!!

Our new scrub caps!!!

My fine date and I ;-) 

This has been a busy weekend inside the Johnson home too! On Friday morning, Natey was feeling under the weather with a pretty high fever. I joke about how the kids seem to get sick usually when there are a million things going on at school for me - like this time... and this. But thankfully, it happened when we had some reinforcements. Nate's mom has been in town since Thursday and she will be with us until Tuesday. His aunt surprised us all when she flew in from Michigan on Saturday! Of course, we promptly took them to our favorite spot for lunch - i.e. chicken and waffles LOL...

Today has been some much needed chill time. Going to round it out with eating tons of Nate's delicious BBQ and soccer watching and a good night's sleep ;-)

Sidenote...this just happened!!!! Ahhhh!!!

Hope you all are having a great weekend! Talk to you soon!

Last Official Day of Pre-Intern Year Vacation...

So my last week of vacation pretty much flew by exponentially...

Last Tuesday, my dad drove up from Indiana and visited with us until Saturday. He was a BIG help watching the kids while I completed my advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) certification for intern year. It was also restaurant week in the Triangle, so we had a a blast trying out new places to eat, and took him to a couple of our favorites so far... :cough: Dame's Chicken & Waffles :cough:

Groceries with Grampy

Lounging around

On Monday, we began our morning routine "practice run". This meant that Isabelle and Nate started daycare and summer camp. I feel so rusty with getting us dressed and out the door before 9AM, so this practice was definitely just as much for me as it was for the kids. Some mommy-guilt induced sadness surfaced on Sunday because it was settling in that our extended time together is coming to an end. But thankfully, it has been a great transition into the kids' new schedules and they both seem happy with the daycare/camp that we chose. The coolest part is that Nate is at the same place as his sister for the summer, so he regularly "checks on her". I am sure Isabelle loves seeing his face throughout the day too. 

HAIR!

Today, my goal was to tie up any urgent loose ends as far as the house and family stuff - i.e. paying bills, errands, phone calls, etc...etc... (it feels like it never ends). However, my more important other goal was to treat-mah-self. I wanted to finally get to the mall because I have been daydreaming about meandering through the stores of my choice, on no one's schedule but my own, to buy things that I not only needed, but wanted just because. Not only did I manage to gift myself a few additions to the wardrobe for work, I scored some great sales on kids' and hubby stuff too, so everyone received goodies today :-)

The last big to-do of the day was an appointment at my first Durham salon! I found a place that specialized in natural hair - it was very similar to my salon in Indy. The stylist did a great job and I am excited to experiment with more natural styles to combat all the North Carolina heat and humidity. What do you think?!

:yawn: Alright, I am off to bed so I can be nice and refreshed for tomorrow... We are kicking off orientation with electronic medical records (EMR) training. Talk to you soon!

P.S. Totally had to laugh at this again..."It's the best day of the year!" hahaha

Chatting about the Residency Application Process with Accepted.com

Hey Guys!

Recently, I did a follow-up interview with Accepted.com about my experiences applying and interviewing for residency. I can't believe that it has already been almost one year ago I was just starting to apply...You can read it HERE.

Please pass it on to any medical student/future medical students you know :-)

Talk to you soon!

Settling into Our New Digs...

Eight days until orientation! We're all play around here...



Last weekend, our goal was to find the best deals and fill some of these empty rooms, so we ventured to the famous "Furnitureland South" in High Point, North Carolina.

Honestly, I had never heard of Furnitureland before my mom (beautiful furniture expert - among other things) informed me that it's kind of a big deal. Did you know North Carolina is where a lot of the big furniture companies have their factories? So the prices are much cheaper than the big chain stores in other states.

It's about an hour drive from our place in Durham.  Oh, I forgot to mention, Furnitureland is 1.2 million square feet of showrooms. Here's a video of us driving up because a picture just couldn't capture the huge-ness of this place...

As soon as we arrived, the Nates stumbled upon the fish tank we saw designed on one of our favorite TV shows Tanked!

Fish tank headboard anyone? 

Everything in that place was pretty gorgeous, and unfortunately, not as functional as we had hoped for a family with young kids. Izzy would have all those tabletop designer touches on the floor...haha

Testing out a showroom couch...

On the hunt for a nice statement mirror...

It was a fun adventure, and although we didn't walk away with furniture, we did get some design inspiration. Fortunately, over Memorial day weekend, we did some exploring in Raleigh (about 15 minutes from home) and discovered there are miles and miles of furniture stores.

In the end, we decided to stick to our original favorites, that ironically, were very close to home.

Dining room table? Check! Couch? Check! 

Hooray for no more standing in the kitchen!

Next up, baby-proofing because this is happening:

And this: 

 !!!!

Where do you go for design inspiration? I would love to hear about your own design projects!