Rise to Your Potential

For Easter in 2003 (when John and I were first dating), he gave me Gordon B. Hinckley's Stand a Little Taller. For those who are unfamiliar with this book, it has a scripture every day with a quote from Pres. Hinckley that goes with the scripture. Inspired by my amazing visiting teacher today, I picked the book up and loved today's scripture and quote and wanted to share them with you:

"A gracious woman retaineth honour." --Proverbs 11:16

"I feel to invite every woman everywhere to rise to the great potential within you. I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure. I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass."
--Gordon B. Hinckley

What a beautiful promise. I will not say anymore and will let you decide how this quote and scripture apply to you and your circumstance.

(PS: I love the gospel.)

Spaz Much?

I have a quick, funny story to share that shows a little glimpse of my spaziness (I blame it on the stress):
Last night we invited our friends over to our house for dinner. They had never been to our house before so we thought it would be fun to have them over. I was on call at the hospital Friday night and it was a crazy busy night so I only slept for about 1.5 hours. I got home and took a short nap then we started to get dinner ready. We told them to show up around 5:30-6. At 6:00 they still hadn't arrived but I didn't want to call them until they were a few minutes late (I didn't want to be over eager). Around 6:15 John told me to call them to make sure they could find our place. As soon as he said this, I realized that I had never given them our address!! I quickly called LeAnne and they were waiting in a parking lot of a Baptist church near our house! Not only had I not given her our address, I also had never given her my phone number (what a great friend I am!). Last time we hung out, I told them the area we lived in. So they sent us emails and Facebook messages then decided to start driving toward our house hoping we would give them a call. I won't make this mistake again! I felt so bad. Sorry LeAnne & Donny!
I am my mother's daughter.

Oobees!!

So a while back I blogged about how much I love my Oobees. You can click here to see that post. Anyway, I found out today they are having a mega-sale to make room for new inventory. Almost everything on the site is only $8.00!! The slippers are normally $30 and well worth it, so it's a steal of a deal at $8.00. I went on tonight and bought two new pairs, as well as a shirt, and a blanket. I am so excited for the blanket that is coming. In addition to slippers they have shirts, bags, pillows, blankets, and hats. I wanted to buy more pairs but thought I need to wait and save room for when they come out with cute new styles. I just wanted to let you all know before they sell out!
http://www.oobees.com/
I went for Amber's Animal Instinct:

And Mandy's Surfin Stripes: Here's the blanket I ordered: Let me know if you decide to buy any and which style.

St. Patrick's Day BBQ

So we are SO far behind on blogging. Oh well. Life has been pretty crazy lately.

The weekend after St. Patrick's Day, Thomas and Kristin Rose had a St. Patrick's Day BBQ at their house. We were all supposed to bring Irish food. I don't know how to make anything Irish, so I just brought green appetizers instead. We also had corned beef, potatoes, vegetables, bread, wild rice soup, and yummy pies for dessert. It was yummy food and great company.

John must have caught me during a laugh or something. I look weird. But the cheesecake is cute!


On our second date, John and I went up to his parent's cabin with a bunch of his missionary buddies. We played the game Moods. We had a lot of fun playing it. Well, they don't make Moods anymore so John and I have been trying to find it online for a decent price since we've been married. I got the best present this year for Christmas when I opened up Moods! This was the first time we had played the game in over 5 years, and it did not disappoint. It helps we were playing with a fun group of people.
Thanks Kristin and Thomas for another fun party!

Close Call

Yesterday started out like any other call day. I woke up early, got ready, made sure I had my call bag ready, and kissed my sleeping husband good bye. The prior night it had snowed and the side streets were not plowed, but once I was on the freeway the roads were plowed and clear.

I'm currently rotating at HCMC (Hennepin County Medical Center) in downtown Minneapolis. During the week I take a different route than I took yesterday morning. The 94 freeway has the worst traffic and even though it is a slightly shorter distance, during the week it takes longer than my preferred route. Howevever, it was 7am on a Saturday and I knew traffic on 94 was not going to be a problem.

The road was well plowed and I was moving along with the flow of traffic. I was driving in the far right outside lane. When 94 crosses the Mississippi River, the outside lane turns into an "exit only" lane for the next exit. I had forgotten this so as soon as I saw the sign I tried to get over to the other lane. I checked the next lane over but a car was there and I couldn't get over. However, when I looked back straight ahead I realized the lane I was in was no longer plowed.

Well I was going way too fast for a non-plowed road and I lost control of my car. It was terrifying as I felt my car swerve to the left and then back to right and then the next thing I knew my car was pointed in the opposite direction of traffic. I felt so helpless as my car was sliding and scared that I would either crash into the side of the bridge (there is no shoulder) or get hit by a car in another lane. Well neither happened. And by some miracle all the cars I had been riding with continued along and during the slide I was the only car on that part of the road. As soon as my car stopped, I saw a couple cars coming toward me but I had enough distance to turn my car around and continue to the hospital.

I was definitely shaken up by this experience. My heart was pounding and I was literally shaking all over. After I had parked my car in the parking garage I had to walk down the stairs and my knees were shaking so hard it was difficult to walk.

I have been in a couple fender-benders but have been fortunate enough to never have been involved in a big accident. Well, I thought for a split second that Saturday was going to be my first. I think it is a miracle that nothing happened and we (my car and I) drove away physically unharmed. Next time I pray thanking our Heavenly Father that John and I were able to travel to and from work and school safely, this phrase will have new meaning!!

My Valentine's Day Tradition

I was on call Friday night at the hospital. During my call night earlier this week I was able to get to sleep by midnight. I didn't sleep very well though because I was cold and also kept waking up about every 40-60 minutes worried I was going to sleep in and not hear my alarm. I also had dreams my pager kept going off. Well Friday one of my patients was really sick and I was up until 4:45 getting things set up for her. I went straight up to my call room as soon as I could so I could get at least 2 hours before I had to wake up again. I double checked my alarm on my phone (I actually set 3 alarms on my phone) then fell asleep.

Well, I did not wake up once and slept really well. My pager went off before my phone did and I thought it was odd but then I realized I felt too rested to have had less than 2 hours of sleep. I looked at the time and it said 8:55! I was being paged because I wasn't there for rounds! My phone accidently was turned to silent. This was so bad. Here I worked so hard all week to make a good impression on my team then I sleep through rounds. I returned the page and it was the nephrology fellow telling me where I could meet up with the rest of the team. I was so frazzled that my presentation about my patient was probably disjointed and I hadn't been able to see her that morning or check on her morning labs. This was a horrible start to Feb. 14. Fortunately my resident was so nice about it. I still don't know what the attending thought about it. Oh well... I finished up my work and notes and left the hospital a little after 11:00 am.

I came home to a clean house and a dozen beautiful roses sitting on my kitchen table. It was a nice welcome home especially after my nightmare morning. John had a couple wedding consultations but was home shortly after. We hung out for a couple hours checking email and doing nothing. Although I had inadvertently slept 2 extra hours, I still had only slept for 4 hours and I was exhausted. So we went upstairs for a nap. This was probably my favorite part of the day.

My roses

I worked as a waitress for probably 7 years before going to medical school. John and I worked together at Outback for the first 2 years we were married. Valentine's Day is the busiest day of the year in restaurants and NOBODY ever gets the day off. So we officially hate (strong word but I mean it) going out on Valentine's Day. So our first year not working in the restaurant business (3 years ago) we had no desire to go out to eat. I had class late and came home to a wonderful meal John had cooked for me. It was a total surprise. He had grilled Filet Mignon and garlic shrimp with balsamic asparagus on the side. The food was better than restaurant food. And of course a dozen roses waiting for me on the table again. He had also made me a playlist of music to listen to during dinner. It was the best Valentine's Day and so romantic. The next year (last year) I came home to find the same thing.

Well this year John told me it was my turn to host Valentine's Day. I told him I was going to be post-call so I wasn't going to have much energy to do much. I was thinking about doing take-out from our favorite Indian restaurant or something. Well, when I woke up from my nap, John had the same dinner all ready to cook. He is the best. So I guess we've created a tradition that we will carry on every year.

Our delicious dinner. Good work hubs! You are the best!

Also, I just bought new glasses! I'm excited about them since I've had the same pair since John and I were first married.

This is my "I'm post-call, don't have make-up on , but I love you anyway so yes you can try out your lighting" look.

So, do you have any Valentine's Day Traditions? What is your favorite Valentine's Day memory? I would love to hear...

Fun-filled Weekend

I have refrained from posting my professional work on this blog since I have a photo blog, but this shoot was way too fun. This weekend I worked with another photographer to shoot a wedding in St Paul. Although coverage was for 10 hours, it was incredible fun. I won't say much here, because I have posted a ton of shots on my photo blog. But here is a taste: