Lavender Kay

(photo taken at the Oregon Coast)

Hello!

I am sorry it has been so very long since I have posted on my blog.  Life has been a little crazy for Jonathan and I the past few months.  Last month I quit both my jobs, Jonathan graduated from Medical School (I am so proud of him!), my sister got married, we flew to Mexico for a week, we drove up to Flat Head Lake, we tried to fit in everyone and everything we love about Spokane and we moved to Corvallis!  It feels like we have just being going non stop and there just hasn’t been time for anything else.

Now we have moved into our new home and are starting to adjust to this new and crazy life.  Jonathan had his first night at the hospital as Dr. Pasma last night and it sounds like it was pretty crazy!  He worked from 6pm to 8:15am and his very first patient was pretty complicated and near death!  What a way to start!  But he is an amazing doctor, doing an incredible job and I am so proud of him.  And for me, I have a lot of exciting plans and adventures ahead as well.

The first thing I am very excited to tell you about is my project for this blog.  I have decided to take this blog in a new direction.  I have decided to make this year in Corvallis my year of art and I will use this blog as a way to share with you all of my projects and adventures.  I will keep with this specific blog link for a little while but I am working on creating a whole new look and name.  I will keep you posted as the time comes to release the new one.

Thank you for your dedication to this blog and I promise to have much more regular posts for here on out.  See you tomorrow!

It is weird that we finally know where we will be moving.  For almost a year I desperately wanted to know where we would be moving and now I know.  I just know.  The waiting is over and it doesn’t feel exactly like I thought it would.

I am trying to find the balance between my appreciation for Spokane and my excitement/worry for Oregon.  I have only moved once in my life and it was to Spokane.  I just don’t have very much experience in this area.

We only have two and a half left months in Spokane and I want to make the most of every moment.  But at the same time, I want to find joy and excitement in the next step of life we are about to take.  How do I do both?  There always seems to be a tension between missing all the people and places I love about Spokane and wanting to find a way to temporarily let go so I can make the transition a little easier.  Does that make sense?

Yesterday I felt so overwhelmed with the thought of leaving Spokane and our cozy home and wonderful friends.  There will always be ups and downs but I have truly loved living in Spokane.  It has a special charm that I will always cherish.  And we have found a church that we so deeply love.  How will we leave it all behind.  I am able to soften the blow by reminding myself that we will come back.  We will collect wonderful experiences along the way and then we will come back and it will all be worth it.

Thank you Spokane for being such a wonderful place to live.

Hi friends!  I hope everyone had a great week.  Today I went antique store shopping and found some amazing things that I thought I would share with you.

Also:

While I was antique shopping I found a small little box and decided to mail my friend a little note inside the little box.  Here is what I did.

First, I wrote my friend a note and tied it with pretty yellow string.

Then I placed the note in the small box I found at the antique store.

I finished it by wrapping it in kraft paper!

I love sending and receiving things in the mail!  We should do it more often. Happy Friday everyone.  Have a great weekend.

I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins the other day and just had to share them with you because they are so yummy!

Here is what you will need:

– 1 box of yellow cake mix

– 1 15oz can of pumpkin

– 1 bag of milk chocolate ships

– 1 tsp of cinnamon

– 1/2 tsp of nutmeg

-1/4 tsp of ground gloves

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all the the ingredients together in a bowl.  I used a Kitchen Aid but you can use whatever you prefer.  Next, take out a muffin pan and grease each individual compartment and fill with the batter.  Each compartment can be filled 3/4 full or completely full.

Once you have filled the muffin pan, you can place the pan in the oven.  They can take anywhere between 15 to 25 min to cook.  To see if they are done, put a toothpick in the muffin to see if it comes out clean.  When they are finished cooking let them cool for about 5 to 10 minutes and then serve them on a platter.  Enjoy!

Milwaukee, WI

We found out we are moving to Milwaukee!  We received the email at 10am on Friday morning that Jonathan was accepted to the Medical College of Wisconsin PM&R Residency Program!  We are so excited!! This was the program we really wanted.  One of the many perks of this specific residency is that the residences and their spouses get to go to Italy for a month as part of the training!  We are so grateful to be accepted to such a wonderful program and so happy we finally know!  We will actually be moving to Corvallis this June for the internship year and then one year from July, we will be moving to Milwaukee.  I am so excited for this new adventure we are about to take.

Here is a poster I designed for my husband’s band.  They are an amazing dance band playing a show at Whitworth at the end of this month.  It is going to be such a fun night full of dancing, glow sticks and good music!

I am so proud of Jonathan today!  I am always proud of Jonathan but I am especially proud today.  He is the most amazing man and I am so thankful for him!

Photo taken by Ben Blood

My husband is a fourth year medical student and for the past year he has been applying and interviewing for residency programs all over the country.  We have been on an emotional roller coast for most of the year waiting to find out what program we will be placed in and what city we will move to.  The road to residency is a complicated one.  You have to go through a match program and how it works is you rank your programs from most to least important and then you wait to hear which one you get!  And you aren’t even guaranteed a spot!!  You find out on a Monday if you match and then you have to wait until Friday to find out where you match.  We having been waiting to find out our match for months and today was the day we were sent the email.

I tend to be an anxious person by nature so I knew from the beginning that this experience was going to be crazy for me.  My journey through all this has been interesting because the outcome of the match would drastically affect my life but at the same time, I am not the one interviewing and flying all over the country.  I have been extremely involved in choosing locations but I am not the person they are choosing to hire.  It is completely out of my control.  Although this process has been such a wild ride, I am so lucky to be going through it with Jonathan.  He has been so wonderful and I deeply appreciate him.

With all that said, we received the email at 9am today and Jonathan successfully matched into a PM&R (Physical Medicine and Rehab) residency program!  I am so proud of him.  He has worked so hard and I am so excited for this new adventure in our lives.  I know he is going to be an amazing doctor and I am so happy to be on this journey with him!

Happy Friday everyone!  The sun is out and I can’t wait to go play in it!  Jonathan is picking me up in a few minutes and we are going to have lunch in the park before I head into work.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!  This is a photo from Anthropologie and I posted it because it is such a lovely spring room.

Source: anthropologie.com

Source: weheartit.com

This is how I felt today!  The sun came out and it was so warm.  One of my good friends came over and we went on a walk to the park with the beautiful sun shining down on us.  Afterward we made some yummy hot cocoa and sat on the side walk in the sun.  We both agreed that we felt like we were kids again and all we needed was some sidewalk chalk. In that moment I felt like time stopped.  All my worries seemed less important.  People were out walking their dogs and the birds were chirping.  It was wonderful.  This makes me excited for summer evenings filled with walks around our neighborhood, barbecues, flower picking and strawberry lemonade!

Source: flickr.com

Ever since I married Jonathan, I have been addicted to donuts!  Jonathan has a love for donuts that is amazing.  I found this photo on Pinterest and I think it is magical.