SI-- WEEK THIRTY TWO

This new month has been fabulous. Some days I didn't even have to be out of bed until 9am! I've fit in a few workouts, ate good food, and spent lots of time with family & friends. Sometimes it's almost discouraging because I think to myself, "this is many people's normal work week.." But then I end the self pity-party and get back to work.

The majority of this month is purely lectures. The only patient-contact time I will have is in my own clinic one day per week. Otherwise, I typically have a half-day of lectures over a variety of topics. This past week we started with a financial planning lecture that started with general advice (no matter your salary, you need to budget) and ended with specifics (loan repayment options, term v. whole life insurance, leasing v. buying cars, etc). One of the things T and I have been trying to work through is how quick to pay off my loans. For a long time we've been in the "throw every spare penny at your loans to pay them off as quick as possible" camp. But now that I've decided on a specialty, it is likely that I can negotiate some loan repayment. So do we relax a little on the loan repayment and take advantage of that perk? BUT, loan repayment is taxed as income.. so a big chunk will never make it to paying down my loans. Meanwhile, my loans are still increasing at 6.8%. Tough decisions! For now we will keep paying off T's loans and deal with mine in 6 months when we're forced to make a decision ;) My other lectures covered pediatric habilitation (an overview of the resources/services for children with physical/mental disabilities), women's health (workshops on birth control, PAP smears, breast masses etc), and pediatric end-of-life (how do you help parents and children during the last months of life? what medications can you use for specific symptoms? etc).

What about the fun stuff this week?
+ We had an awesome night of Thai takeout + The Game of Things with my good friends from medical school (even if the takeout part took waaaayyyy too long). It's a little bittersweet because as Match Day approaches we're getting closer to members of the group moving away...
+ Loved celebrating a good friend's soon-to-be-born little boy at her baby shower. Baby showers in my neighborhood are no joke - we're basically professional baby showerers.. Just sayin'. But it's always fun to hear all the advice shared by these superwomen
+ Tonight we were able to spend the evening having dinner and good conversation with T's mom & grandparents. His family is the best! Plus, we were the lucky ones who ended up with the leftover dessert :)
+ T and I have logged many hours this week with two (awesome!) full-time missionaries from our church. We're working on a new training tool to be used in the area to, basically, remind people to look beyond themselves and help/love the people around them everyday. Simple enough, right? Spending time on such a genuine, selfless project always brings such a sweet spirit to our home - I love it! These young men are amazing and have such pure, honest intentions. It is really uplifting to spend so much time around them. This definitely trumps our typical evening spent watching TV on the couch.. I totally meant to snap a picture earlier this week when we had six of us crammed in my office working on the project I mentioned. Blogger fail! Just imagine 4 clean-cut teenage guys in white shirts and ties surrounding our iMac with their scriptures and church magazines open in their laps as they passionately work to find quotes to polish off the Prezi.. that was the typical scene at our home this past week. Instead, here is the one single picture I snapped with my med school friends:

Let this be a warning - if you photo bomb my creeper pictures it may end up on the blog for everyone to see ;)

This coming week I won't get to sleep in late.. but I will have many afternoons to myself :) Such a nice change of pace! I have 12 more hours of lecture on end-of-life issues as well as a half-day of women's health and a cardiac arrest simulation. Should be a good week! Love ya'll!

xo,
Krista