An awesome ending

I had read last week that 1000 Awesome Things was ending, that after chronicling one thousand things that make your day more, well, awesome, Neil Pasricha was retiring his keyboard. So, last night, I went to the blog to see. A pleasant surprise...the final awesome thing was posted on my birthday, and it was whatever I wanted it to be. That's right, out of all the awesome things on that site over 4 years (you really should check it out...there is definitely something awesome about sneaking cheaper candy into the movie theater, hitting a bunch of green lights in a row, the moon, and that moment right before you fall asleep when you know you're about to fall asleep), the most awesome one is mine. And so, in honor of a great idea, and my birthday, here are a few recent awesome things:

-free Starbucks
-checking things off the bucket list
-2 dollar bills
-laying down in bed at the end of an exhausting day (this one is actually on the blog, but I SO agree)
-the first sip of a really good beer
-flip flop weather
-samples at the farmer's market
-phone calls from friends you haven't heard from in a while
-when the sun comes out after days of rain
-when you happen to pick the perfect, best thing off of the menu and it's exactly what you wanted
-family members that will call and check on you twice a day when you're not feeling well
-wandering into little bookstores and just browsing
-praying night prayer together
-when God works miracles (haha, Mom, that one is for you!)

I don't know that any of those are the #1 MOST awesome thing. Instead, I really think it's that moment when we are able to recognize the awesome in our lives and be grateful for it. To just stop and say, yeah...AWESOME!

Take me out to the ballgame

While I generally would not recommend double-calf-tattoo-security-guard-bud-light-drinking-season-ticket-holder as a best friend or cat sitter, he makes an EXCELLENT source of entertainment if you sit behind him at the Royals game. Other things that make for a lovely game:

-blue and white margaritas in signature glasses
-funnel cake
-calling the double steal before it happens
-skinny jeans joke that never dies
-good company
-"Moooooooooose!"
-Boulevard wheat dispensed from a Ghostbusters backpack
-very nearly come-from-behind win (oh well, next time)

(ignore the mostly photoshopped watermark from the fan photos website)

Amazing grace

Easter is always a time that reminds me of God's faithfulness. Through everything. No matter what. Every time I try to comprehend the love that it would take to send your only Son to suffer and die for someone who you knew would fail time and again to return that love, someone who would be selfish and stubborn, who would turn their back at the slightest struggle, who would doubt at the first sign of something not going according to my plan, and yet He loves me anyway...it just blows me away, and I'm left humbled with gratitude.

On today, Divine Mercy Sunday, it's a perfect time to renew my faith and say, no matter what this world throws at me, Jesus, I trust in You.

Residency 2.9: PICU

It's hard for me for to sit down and write a blog post about my month in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for a couple of reasons. I'm so delirious with relief from being done, and with the gorgeous day outside and the nagging of all the things that didn't get done last month, it's hard for me to sit still at all. It's also hard to sum up so many experiences into one blog post. And for now, I almost want to just say, "it's over" and leave it all behind. But that wouldn't be fair to my two readers, so, for you, I will sum up the last month.

For those of you who aren't in health care, I don't know if there are ways to describe what a 26-bed ICU is like. Besides the NICU, which for some reason is very different, my only real experience with an ICU was in medical school at the VA--a 10-bed unit that often wasn't even full, and that was managed by the general teams instead of intensivists (so that tells you how "intensive" it really was). So to be frank, a busy day in our PICU was a rude awakening. I would LOVE for someone to just follow us around for a day and see the craziness. Where nobody bats an eye when rounds are interrupted by having to do chest compressions on a kid whose trach fell out. Or to walk in in the morning and see one of the rooms converted into an OR so that the surgeons can "explore the chest" of one of the post-op heart kids who's having too much bleeding. Yeah, that's totally normal. I could go on and on. Oh the stories!

Somehow in the midst of this environment, I did manage to learn a lot, to grow more confident in my decision-making, and to become (very slightly) more comfortable with really sick kids. I also had the opportunity to be a part of some very difficult end-of-life situations, which, while I wouldn't seek them out and I don't always enjoy, reveal God's hand in so many ways. There are some things that just won't ever make sense unless through the eyes of faith. It was really a good place for me to be during Lent--over-worked, under-rested, totally stressed out, but at the end of the day, my suffering didn't compare to the parent watching their child slip away.

So yeah, it was an intense, intense month. And I'm super glad to be done. And to have a life again, especially with spring being here (Hazzah!). Looking forward to Easter and sunshine and sleeping in and PORTLAND!

Hasta for now!