Step Three

Today Joe is taking his LAST general medical Boards - Step III. It's actually a two day test and it's on the computer. We have been busy this week preparing.

Yes we.

He studies on the bed.

I have to be the one to go in periodically and wake him up! Ha!

I'm going to Kansas City this weekend for a fun girls weekend. What are your plans for this weekend?? Happy Friday!

Youth Job

Today I'm joining Kelsey at The Seattle Smiths to participate in Wishful Wednesday!

I wish... I could go back and spend one day working at a job from my youth, and it would be....

(Isn't that a great theme??)

WORKING AT THE GAP

I worked at Gap as a teenager in high school and I loved it!! I never made any money because while I was working I would be shopping in my head! Ha! We had to wear a white shirt and khakis on Sundays and a blue shirt and khakis on Wednesdays so I HAD to get new clothes all the time. At least that's what I told my mom when I didn't have any gas money!

One thing I didn't like about the job was the "sales" aspect. We had to offer people credit cards at the register and I hated that. I didn't even have a credit card myself because I was 17 years old and I remember a customer asked me once what the interest rate was. I said "twenty-two percent" and he freaked out and I was thinking what's the big deal?? Oh, innocence.

Hope you have a fantastic Wednesday!

Where was YOUR youth job??

Driftwood Mirror FOR LESS

The other day I got this delightful catalog in the mail:

When I was flipping through I found THE CUTEST mirror I've ever seen.

But then I saw the price. Ouch!!!

But then I got to thinking... why couldn't I just make that myself?

I found a rectangular mirror at Walmart for $9.99. Then I found some willow branches at Michael's for $5.99.


That's less than twenty dollars (incase you're keeping track! Ha!). I broke all the branches up into pieces. I tried to vary the sizes and I sorted them into piles by thickness.

Then I started hot gluing the branches on, starting with the thick ones to cover the frame and adding the smaller ones at the top to add texture. It took me less than an hour to do the entire frame!

Then I was ready to hang!

I love it - maybe even more than the catalog one, plus I didn't have to wait for it to be shipped to me! Plus it was cheap - sixteen dollars!

So what do you think??

By the way, Pottery Barn has a driftwood mirror too. It's $199.99 and I still like ours better! Ha!

And here's a round one from West Elm for $129. Cute but still pricey.

I hope you feel inspired to make your own driftwood mirror. Please let me know if you do - I'd love to see pictures of how yours turns out!

Congrats Lori - you're the winner from yesterday's I've Got Questions. Please click Contact Me and send me your address so I can mail you your prize :)

Important Questions

I thought I would start something new on Mondays! I want your answers to some burning questions I have. Ha! Post your answers in the comments below. I'm going to pick one random person from the comments to win a prize :)


1. Is Kate Hudson really pregnant?

2. Do we like Benjamin's makeover?


3. What happened to Kim Kardashian's face?

4. "Digital Clutch" = computer crossed with a purse (will be featured on the new Sex and the City movie) - would you buy one?

5. Dying doggie hair: yay or nay?


6. What is the best mall food/drink spot?

I hope you had a fantastic weekend. I did for two reasons. First - Joe and I spent the entire weekend re-doing our Master Bedroom (I felt like I was on Trading Spaces because we decided to do the entire thing in one weekend! Ha!). Second - I won the cutest apron from this cute blog Green Onions (thanks Karen!). I never win anything! Don't forget to leave your comments below and you'll win something too :)

The Story of How We Met

Show Us Your Life is back and I'm participating this week to share the story of how Joe and I met.

We met the very first week of college at the University of Oklahoma.

We were both from Missouri and six hours away from our family and didn't know a soul!

I met his roommate first at a lunch "mixer" during move-in week to the dorms. I remember there were signs on all the door room doors with everyone's name and saying to myself "I wonder who this Joe guy is" when we were at his dorm room. He moved in that night. Our new group of friends, including Joe's roommate, decided to hang out later that evening and he invited Joe along.

The rest is history! We had so much in common because we actually grew up 45 minutes away from each other.

This is the earliest pictures we have of each other. I remember my roommate took it with a disposable camera. Isn't that so early-2000s?!? Ha!

Without Joe I don't think I would have made it through college. I'm not saying that to be sappy, I literally couldn't remember how to get to the cafeteria or to the Union. I had to practice walking to my classes before the first day of school. Bless my heart, I grew up in a town of 250 people and I was LOST. Ha! And poor Joe, he probably didn't know how to let me down gently so he just kept helping me through.

Joe and I would meet every single day for lunch for three years. I would walk all the way across campus to meet him. I think I walked on clouds :) We drove home together for all the weekend trips and holidays.

Joe graduated with his undergraduate degree in three years and I was crushed at the thought that he might find a medical school somewhere far away. But he decided to stay in Oklahoma and go to medical school.

We got engaged exactly three years to the date of our first date, September 19, 2005.

We got married on July 3, 2006. It was the best day of my life!


Happy Friday! I can't wait to hear your stories. Don't you love hearing how people met?? My grandparents met at a Halloween party. My parents met at a line dancing lesson. Love it.

Favorite iPhone Apps

Last week I finally got upgraded to the new iPhone (not the new, new one that was "leaked" earlier this week, but the other "new" one. And while we are on the subject, there is a Marketing Mastermind at Apple who knew the frenzy that would be created if you just release a new phone with new features every 6 months. You slay me, sir. Like we don't know the original could have totally had video camera capabilities.)

My old iPhone was black, so I picked out the white one because I figured it would be easier to find at the bottom of my purse.

I have been having so much fun loading new Apps onto it so I thought I would share a few of my favorites with you.

1. Ransom Letters. It takes any message you create and turns it into a ransom note. I sent this one to Joe a couple nights ago:
2. Vintage Maker: takes any video you've shot on the iPhone and creates a "vintage" movie with it. I shot this one of my BFF's little girl last weekend:



3. Words With Friends: it's like cyber Scrabble you play with other iPhone users you know. Joe and I play with his brother all the time.

4. Photo Effect: takes the pictures you've taken on your phone and changes coloring and effects. Like this of me and Boomer, our dog:


5. Shazam: I think this was on an iPhone commercial. You open this App while there is a song on the radio you want to identify and it tells you the artist and the name of the song. Don't ask me how it works but it does! Ha!

Those are my top five favorites!

What are your favorite phone apps??

You Can Take the Girl Out of the Country...

Lately I have been getting frustrated (SO frustrated) with all the random jewelery lying around my bathroom counter. Actually, it's everywhere! I found a necklace in my china hutch! Ha! It's all from Forever 21 or other cheap places like that so I never feel compelled to put it in my nice jewelery box. I have a jewelery tree on my bathroom sink but it's not enough!

So I put it all in a box. Organized.

Sure, it's actually a tackle box. But it's organized nonetheless!! Ha!

(Because I know someone is going to ask in the comments: yes it was new ;-) That would not be very cute to have fish guts stuck to your jewelery!)

Joe and I have been spending every spare minute of our time in our yard lately. He's mowing and I'm watering flowers. Or we're talking about what kind of patio would be nice. Or what kind of bushes we want along the front. Or flowerbed I want around my trees. If the trees weren't dead. Which they are.

I'm going to call today to have a landscaper come out to give us more ideas.

Let me ask you, how do you get ideas for your landscaping?? Online? Did you hire someone? Was it already there when you bought your house?

Happy Tuesday! It's going to be a sunny day here in Kansas!!

Would You Eat That??

Last night Joe and I got together with one of his co-workers and his wife for supper. They joined the residency program a little late but we are becoming good friends!! Don't you think it's so awesome to find a couple where the guys get along and the girls get along? Let's face it, at most get-togethers the girls end up in one room and the guys in another anyway. Or is that just at the parties I go to?? Ha!

We decided to try a brand new sushi place in town. I'm a sushi snob because I had some AWESOME sushi in California when I was there for a work trip and I can't find anything that even compares to it here in the Midwest. It's a real tragedy. Ha!

But this place was actually really good!! I'm kind of a phony sushi eater because I usually don't even get anything raw (hello fried shrimp!!).

When we were all finished our server brought us a little surprise.


Yeah. Octopus.

And then Joe popped one in his mouth. The man has no fear.

Let me ask you, would you have tried octopus???

How to Get Flawless Skin

I've been wanting to do a post on this for a while and someone asked me a while back what my tips were for keeping skin clear. These are some things that work for me!

1. Wash your pillowcase often. I try to change my pillowcases a couple times a week and after I started doing this I noticed a HUGE change in my skin. It makes sense when you think about all the oils in your hands and hair that get into your pillowcase!
2. Make a routine and stick to it. My face always does best when I make a routine of washing, exfoliating, moisturizing, etc. and stay consistent.
3. Wash your makeup brushes regularly. Same thing as the pillowcase. If you don't wash your brushes you end up re-infesting your skin with the same old oils and bacteria. I wash mine with baby shampoo! Ha!
4. Get some sun. I don't know why, but my skin is always more clear after being outside in the sun.
5. Always wash your face before bed. Trust me, I know when you're so tired and the last thing you want to do is wash your face. It's so worth it though to have clear skin!
6. Try not to touch your face. This is hard for me - I always sit at my desk with my head rested on my hand.
7. Drink lots of water. It truly does make your skin clear and helps it maintain moisture.

Happy CLEAR skin day!! :)

Date Night

Last night Joe and I set time aside (scheduled! Isn't that sad??) for a date night because he's been working long-long-crazy hours and I've been gone and I'm leaving again this weekend for a girls weekend in Kansas City. We're like to ships passing in the sea at this point.

We went to Red Robin for dinner because I'm totally on a diet but I want to sabotage myself. Ha!

I love that Bleu Ribbon Burger. YUM.

We had a bad year with Red Robin a while back because they decided to discontinue (yes, like your favorite lipgloss) Joe's favorite burger, the A-1 Peppercorn Burger. So we went on total strike and stopped visiting and we may or may not have had a fling with Five Guys. But then we were there recently and they had brought the A-1 back!! And all the angels in heaven started singing again! Ha! So we're totally ON again with RR.

So anyway, we started talking about how nice it would be to have an actual video camera because when we want to record any kind of video we have to use our point and shoot camera. While it's nice that we've got that capability built in, it's kind of bulky to drag around.

So we headed to Wal-Mart (where else?) and actually bought one of the new Sony Flip cameras. Can I just tell you another funny or somewhat disturbing story? When the Electronics Specialist was trying to sell us on this certain model he actually threw this out there: "And, hey, you could discretly hide this in your purse to record videos of people." Just something to be aware of, ladies.

So anyway, I'm thinking a video tour of our home could be in the works. Because someone mentioned it and I'm all about pleasing all FOUR of you who read this blog! Ha! That or I'm really lacking in the blog material department.

By the way, my bloggie friend Mrs. Carioca gave me this adorable award AGES ago and I've been meaning to thank her and participate. THANK YOU!!!

I'm also supposed to tell you 7 things about me. (is there anything I haven't shared at this point?)

1. I really hate going to the dentist and I would totally rather go to the gynecologist than the dentist any day of the week.
2. I have an irrational fear of stilts. A few years ago Joe and I went to see Cirque de Soleil and when the guy came out in stilts I flipped a gasket. And I kind of freaked out too.
3. I'm still best friends with someone I was best friends with when I was 12.
4. I a big fan of spray tanning to get some color.
5. I once tried out to be on Jeopardy and also Joe and I were finalists for that t.v. show that was on a few years ago called "Here Come The Newlyweds" on ABC.
6. I have a I Love Lucy nightlight.
7. Every month I get not one, but two copies of Fitness magazine. I think God is trying to tell me something (maybe Five Guys and I need a trial separation?)

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday!!

You've Got Questions...

I saw this on Ashley's blog and I thought I'd do my own version! Also, at the end I'm answering some of the questions people have asked me via email or blog comments and I'm sloooow at getting back to people!

Favorite Style Icon:
Can I merge Reese Witherspoon + Lucille Ball???

I totally wish women still wore hats and gloves nowadays! I've been so tempted to buy some in the antique mall and try to revive them myself! Ha! Plus, y'all know I love a good dress!

Favorite Party Theme:
Well, we just had a dinner party a couple months ago with all the other anesthesia residents and we did Mexican food + cards which was really fun! I just made all the fixings for tacos and burritos and had people make their own dinner and then we all sat around and played cards. Too fun!

I would love, love to have a girls party in the theme of "27 Dresses" where each girl would have to show up wearing a really tacky bridesmaid dress. Wouldn't that be fun??
Favorite Socialite Lit Book:
I've never read one!! I'm trying really hard right now to read a lot of the "classics" that I didn't have to read in school like Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, To Kill and Mockingbird and the like. What that says about Missouri public schools is another story :( (no offense to Missouri as a state - I miss home!! - but we definitely didn't have to read any of these in school)

I do love the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic though (based on a chick lit book) and I just watched it last weekend with my mom!!

Extravagance That You Can't Live Without:
I have to agree with Ashley - TRAVEL!! Even though we are on a resident's budget we definitely try to travel as much as we can. We do a lot of cruises because they're cheap and you get a big bang for your buck!
Living Person That You Admire the Most:
My grandpa! He grew up so poor he "couldn't afford to buy a coke for a nickel" and he has started several businesses over the years, has stayed active in church, will be celebrating a 50 year wedding anniversary this year, etc. And he's a riot!!

Greatest Fear:
Not being able to experience motherhood.

What Talent Would You Most Like to Have:
I would LOVE to have learned to play piano and a child. Actually, our next door neighbor was a piano instructor. Isn't that ironic? I just love when people can casually stroll up to a piano and play a little melody.

Greatest Achievement:
My dream since I was 10 years old was to work here:
And I did. I left my small town in Missouri. Went away to college. Got an engineering degree. And did it. Really, I always tell kids that if I could do it anyone can!! It just takes hard work!!

Thanks so much Ashley for putting this on your blog so I could play along too!

Now, some other questions people have asked me :)

"Where do you shop? I would love to raid your closet!"
I love to shop but I always try to keep it on a budget!! I love Ross Dress for Less but unfortunately we don't have one here in my town. I also love TJMaxx, Gap and I get a lot of stuff from Target too!

"What do you do for a living that you get to travel so much?"
I don't talk to much about actually what it is I do because I want to respect the people I work with. I can tell you that I am a contractor for the federal government and I work with people who are deploying for war.

"How do you get upgraded to first class when you travel?"
I had several people ask me how we got upgraded to first class flights when we took a cruise last month. I wish I had a better answer but I honestly don't know! We didn't even ask for first class but we just noticed that we were first class when we got our airline tickets from the cruise line. We did book everything through the cruise line so maybe that had something to do with it?? I would love to know myself! Ha!

"When are we going to see a tour of your whole house?"
I would love to do that! I would love to even do a video tour even though I feel like a huge dork when I do stuff on video. Would you guys seriously be interested in that?

Hope you all have a fantastic Thursday!!

Easter & Gardening

I hope you had a wonderful Easter! Even though Joe was on call (super disappointing because I really wanted him to go to church with me) Easter Sunday I had a great weekend because my mama came down from Missouri and spent the entire weekend. On Saturday we went shopping at my local antique store and ate lots of bad food (does TWO batches of cookies mean anything to you?! Ha!) and watched movies.

And then look at what the Easter Bunny brought me!

That combined with the warm weather fueled a NEED to start working on flowers around the house today!!

So since Joe was post-call we headed for Home Depot together.

I really felt like we needed something on either side of the stairs at our front door so I potted some Azaleas.
Then we worked on the back deck where I wanted to hang my Topsy Turvey. By the way, between a physician and an engineer we still managed to assemble the thing wrong. Bless our hearts.

When we were out back I noticed a certain someone was watching carefully from the back door. Hehe!
I also used this old wire crate I got at a garage sale to gather some other potted plants.

Look how pathetic that one looks in the back left. It's supposed to be a Hydrangea. I told Joe it looked so puny that I might buy some silk hydrangeas to stick in there until the real ones start growing! Ha!

I've got some big projects planned around the house now that I'm settled in one place for a while.

So, is your green thumb itching???

Traveling

On Tuesday I headed to the airport in Louisiana for my flight home.

Outfit:
Pants: Gap
Belt: Wal-Mart
Camisole: Old Navy
Shirt: Gap

I've had a lot of people ask me where I got my watch, It's the brand Toy Watch and you can get one here. (And they don't even pay me to say that.)


This is my favorite bag to travel with. It's HUGE. I have to travel with two laptops and I can easily get them both in here with a book, my wallet, a bottle of water, a snack and I even had two big bottles of spices I brought home from Louisiana! It's like the Mary Poppins bag!! It's also mainly nylon so I'm not worried about sitting it on the ground or shoving it under an airplane seat. I think they're sold out but they're from here.

Well. My connecting flight ended up getting canceled in Memphis. Have you ever wondered what they give you if have to stay overnight without your luggage?

This.
Which reminds me of a travel tip I wanted to share with you. I always put a post it note over the peep hole in the hotel room. :)

I finally made it home yesterday afternoon!!

*Edit to add*
Yep, you can see through a peep hole! And I know that because I've tried! Ha! Remember that news story not too long ago about a guy who video taped Erin Andrews through her peep hole in her hotel room?? Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.