Friday, May 27th: Last day of school

#1) I drank an alcoholic beverage. Actually, I ate my way through most of it. For whatever reason, I chose a Bloody Mary and insisted on a creative garnish. It was my first drink in months, so I was allowed to be particular. 6 olives, a lime wedge, and a sausage stick later, I was a happy camper:

#2) I hung out with Seth while actually feeling “relaxed.” We’ve been enjoying the quality time, which Seth credits largely to me “toning down the crazy.”

Saturday, May 28th:

#3) I did a load of laundry today. I know, right? My washer is happily humming downstairs as I type. My loving husband had taken over this chore for the majority of my school year, and I think I am resuming my household responsibilities just in time to prevent his transition from slightly resentful to totally and irreversibly bitter. And I can’t say that I blame him. Our landlords bought us a new dryer back in January (or maybe December?) and I didn’t even know what it looked like until today. Kenmore or Whirlpool? Couldn’t tell ya. Front-loading or top-loading? No idea. You guys, I went 5 months without actually seeing my dryer. I have had a few brief interactions with the dishwasher, but the downstairs appliances and I were total strangers until now. I’m so excited that I might even clean the lint screen today.

#4) I haven’t had a caffeinated beverage since Thursday. And today is Saturday. Now this is really something. I woke up this morning and was so well-rested that I didn’t need coffee. (Did I just use “well-rested” in a sentence?) And what’s even crazier about my morning coffee routine is that usually, I’m not just trying to caffeinate, I’m trying to caffeinate efficiently. I’ll brush my teeth while I grind the beans, add the water while my straightener is heating up, review my notes as I fix my hair and wait for brewing, and pour my to-go cup while applying mascara. When I do finally make some coffee this week, I’ll actually be able to use both of my hands….to do the same thing.

Sunday, May 28th:

#5) I did something just for fun. I didn’t even need my secret stash of microbiology flashcards, which I’d been toting around for most of 3rd quarter. My notecards were often within an arm’s reach because apparently, I was concerned that I’d find myself in some sort of unplanned, emergency situation whereby I am forced to remain unproductive unless I can produce my own, hand-held, conveniently mobile study materials. During the school year, such crises arose often. Who knew how many bacterial organisms could be committed to memory while waiting for food at a restaurant, sitting under the dryer at the hair salon, or getting the oil changed? I know, its an illness.

The fun was a Taylor Swift concert with Katie and her friends in Des Moines, IA. We had a blast, and I was as excited to be out of Kirksville as the overly made-up, sequined 7-year-olds were to be singing along with their teen idol. The show was great, and it was totally worth the 3 hours of high-pitched, pre-teen squealing. She even came and performed within a few rows of us….and I might have squealed just a little bit when she was this close:

Thursday, June 2nd

#6) I went to the lake. Not only was this pure, unproductive fun, it also allowed me to re-introduce myself to Mother Nature. She has probably been even more of a stranger to me than my dryer. My friends and I laid out on a raft, swam, and declared a 90′s-themed day. I water-skiied (translation: choked on water and almost lost my swimsuit bottoms…five times), tanned (forgive us, dermatologists), and reminsced about boy bands and old-school Nickelodeon.

It was the perfect recipe for a Facebook status, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For too many weeks and months, I had become the Bitter Facebooker. I logged on after a long night of studying and groaned at the happiness of my actual and virtual friends. It was these cheerful status updates—not unlike the very one that I was concocting right there on the raft—that drove many of my classmates to de-activate their accounts during finals week. We would simply run out of the brain space to appreciate our friends’ potty-training toddlers, new puppies, shaky relationships, cheesy song lyrics, or shopping lists.

So while I will be returning to my old self for a few weeks—genuinely reveling in the happiness of my loved ones (although I still don’t care about your grocery shopping)—I will be keeping my favorite moments off of my status and safely out of view. They are too sweet to be embittered by another like me, who can’t appreciate them in her small-minded frenzy of a day.

Stay tuned for a 2011 recap! We have much more to share, including stories from the Snowpocalypse and 2 weeks in an emergency room armed with only a white coat, stethoscope, and one year’s worth of knowledge (which seemed like a lot at the time).

After exactly 2, 224 miles of Christmas, we are 2 weeks into our new year back in Kirksville: the only Midwestern town that is still completely startled every time that it snows. The roads are barely plowed, but the sidewalks are well cared for by eager locals on their riding lawn mowers. The townsfolk seem convinced of their Southern-ness, as evidenced by the woman in front of me at Wal-Mart wearing a t-shirt that read: “Southern girls don’t sweat, they glisten.” Its this very disillusionment that must leave them immune to both snowfall and good fashion sense. Another local woman learned that I was from Michigan and referred to me as “one of those from the Cold Country.” I wanted to point out that Kirksville is an hour from Illinois and the low is -6 today, but I didn’t. Because thats not Southern hospitality.

We did have a fabulous Christmas highlighted by quality time with our nephews, relaxing with our parents and siblings, and our annual trip to Grandma’s sledding hill in Green Bay. Unfortunately, the ice and monster jumps made the hill a virtual death trap this year instead of a gentle, powdered slide of snowy joy. We knew things had taken a dark turn when we found ourselves staring down into the icy void while naming celebrities that we knew had died under very similar circumstances.

Of course we went down anyway. Here’s a shot of Kyle & Seth before a pretty disastrous run down the hill. Kyle looks like he knows something bad is about to happen:

As far as Christmas gifts go, we really lucked out this year. Seth loves his new Bayern Munich soccer jersey so much that I actually caught him taking pictures of it. Another favorite gift has been our new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. Our first attempt at using this new gadget was 50% successful. The chocolate batch turned out great, but Seth very loosely interpreted the peppermint recipe. And by “loosely interpreted,” I definitely mean “didn’t read.” In lieu of steeping actual mint leaves, he opted for adding copious amounts of mint extract. This left the ice cream tasting less like a sweet treat and more like a dental hygiene product. If you are looking for a dessert to replace your after-dinner mouthwash, we have definitely found a solution for you.

While I can’t honestly say that I’ve missed the grind of medical school, I did miss the unintentional entertainment provided by my classmates. Example: I recently sat through a problem-based lecture during which we were presented with a mysterious clinical case, followed by a question-and-answer period. Now, please imagine a room full of 150 first-year medical students who have just been given their first opportunity to outsmart all of the other eager Sherlocks in the room. Laptops come out, pages are flipped, and hands are anxiously raised. Half of the room furiously Googles possible diagnoses while asking a variety of bizarre questions. The rest of us watch amusedly or secretly Google all of the big words being thrown around by the others as they read verbatim from Wikipedia. “Brain scan! Creatine kinase! Child abuse? Achromotopsia!”

We have a lively and interesting class, and while my friends and I know most everyone’s name by now, we still refer to some of our favorite characters by their original nicknames. Just out of old habit. The origins of these names range from favorite apparel (“orange sweatshirt guy”) to beverage of choice (“skinny Coca-Cola girl”), in-class behaviors (“nodding girl”) or general demeanor (“front-row-hipster-guy”). You may receive a nickname based upon your most irritating characteristic, like “guy who wears 7 pagers that always go off in class but we all know he isn’t on-call for anything.” We also have a few groups that are most easily referred to by their collective nicknames (many of which would be excellent for a rock band), like “The Blondes,” “Mormon Row,” or “Clint & the Smiths.” This last one is literally a group of guys named Clint…or Smith. See, it doesn’t have to be creative.

I’ll leave you with a few favorite shots from the holiday season. I failed to take pictures of almost all of our family members except our adorable nephews or persons interacting with one of our adorable nephews.

Seth and I demonstrating our finely tuned wine-tasting skills.

An instant classic: Dad playing piano with his first grandchild, Drew.

I’m trying to show Drew that I share his interests.

Bonding with Everett.

Maverick is never far from a backhoe.

Aunt Ahna plays trucks.

2 of the best-looking guys that I know.

During those busy autumn weeks, while I holed up in a study room at school, Seth took up the interesting and smelly hobby of homebrewing. (He also became secretly addicted to re-runs of the television show “Gilmore Girls,” but that’s a story for another day). Seth finished his first batch of “Jupiter’s October Ale” in late October, during which time our basement looked like a meth lab and our house smelled like Charlie Brown’s Giant Pumpkin had just exploded.

The brew, however, turned out spectacularly and Seth can hardly wait to bring a couple dozen bottles to our family Thanksgiving celebration this week. Here are a few shots of his masterpiece in progress…

I also celebrated my 26th birthday this week, which was made both memorable and tiresome by the completion of my last final exam of quarter 1 that morning. The day lasted that much longer though, since I was awake at midnight to ring in the big day with my biochem notes and awake again a few short hours later (at a time of day that could be indicated with the fingers of one hand) to re-ring in the big day…with my biochem notes. But by 10am, the exam was complete and my girlfriends and I were getting pedicures and reading old “People” magazines. We are SO behind on our celebrity gossip.

After a long afternoon nap, Seth, Katie & I joined some other members of our student Rotoract club to decorate the Kirksville town square. While we were hoping that there would be wreaths, ribbons, and twinkle lights involved, we forgot that we live in Kirksville and should not have been surprised that the decorating consisted solely of those giant multi-colored bulbs that we all remember from the late 80′s and haven’t seen since. We had a great time though, and Seth even got his picture taken for the newspaper. Apparently this event wasn’t quite important enough for the local TV station, which was probably still recovering from their intense live coverage of the official lighting of our town water tower earlier this month. As we decorated, we even got a little inside scoop on the local business gossip: the deli owner is feuding with the java joint owner over coffee prices, China Palace refuses the city decorations, and those guys from the furniture store are creepy.

I finished the day perfectly, with an amazing dinner courtesy of Chef Van Heukelom and a fabulous night at the movies courtesy of Harry & Voldemort.

2+5+1 apparently equals 26

I even got breakfast in bed the following morning, which was wisely moved to the kitchen table after we remembered that I’m a messy eater who rarely uses a napkin. A pillow coated in bacon grease cannot be good for your skin.

Wishing you all a warm, wonderful Thanksgiving!

Here are a few pictures of us celebrating Seth’s acceptance. My friends Katie & Hadassah helped me plan and execute a little surprise!

And now, as we mark the end of our second full month of medical school, my classmates and I have spent enough time together to develop some initial impressions of each other. Over the last few weeks, we have noticed that medical students generally fall into a few identifiable categories. I’ve prepared the following case presentations so that you can properly diagnose the medical students in your life. Or just laugh at the ones in mine.

DIAGNOSIS #1:

“Gunner”

SYMPTOMS:

- Chronically sitting in the first two rows of the lecture hall

- Loudly and compulsively answering all of the professors’ questions (especially rhetorical ones)

- Using more than 3 highlighters to color-code lecture notes

- Re-listening to lectures via podcast the same day that the lectures actually took place

- Sending classmates unsolicited e-mail reminders with suggestions and critiques on how to dress and behave more professionally

CAUSES:

- Type A personality

- Family history of high achievement

- Academically-induced hyperactivity

TREATMENT:

1 chill pill twice daily for the rest of your life or until symptoms subside (whichever comes first).

DIAGNOSIS #2:

“Know-it-all”

SYMPTOMS:

- Regularly using casual conversation as an excuse to highlight numerous pre-med accomplishments

- Regularly asking irrelevant questions in class as an excuse to highlight numerous pre-med accomplishments

- Running for any club officer position available as an excuse to write an open letter to classmates that highlights numerous pre-med accomplishments

CAUSES:

- Overdeveloped ego

- History of numerous pre-med accomplishments

TREATMENT:

A slice (or two) of humble pie

DIAGNOSIS #3:

“That Guy”

SYMPTOMS:

- Chronically absent from class

- If not absent, then arriving at least 15 minutes late

- Frequently using class time to ask redundant, vague, or bizarre questions (secondary to chronic absence, tardiness, and complete cluelessness)

- Muscular hypertrophy of upper arm due to frequent hand-raising (secondary to frequent question-asking)

- Classmates audibly groaning upon hearing student’s questions or comments

- Frequent and inexplicable wandering in laboratory settings

- Poor academic performance (secondary to all symptoms listed above)

CAUSE:

- Root cause remains unknown

- Secondary cause: total lack of self-awareness

TREATMENT:

Incurable

DIAGNOSIS #4:

“Average Med Student”

SYMPTOMS:

Note: Many characteristics of a medical student may seem unusual in a routine setting but are actually normal in the context of medical school. Examples include:

- Drinking two or more types of caffeinated beverages in one sitting

- Becoming unnaturally possessive of one’s seat in class (There was an intense battle for the left 4th row aisle seat earlier this month, but my left second-row-from-the-back aisle remains uncontested.)

- Responding with, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” when friends and family members try and discuss current news, movies, or gossip

- Never watching television shows at their regularly scheduled date and time

- Forgetting important dates (i.e. birthdays, anniversaries) due to only a vague idea of what the current month might be

- Realizing that you can turn anything into a clever acronym or mneumonic device

- Using medical terminology in an inappropriate setting (example: asking the cashier at McDonald’s what food item is pictured “superolaterally” to the double cheeseburger)

- Inability to remember the last time someone asked “What are you up to?” and you didn’t answer: “Studying.“

CAUSE:

- Intense preparation for an amazing career

TREATMENT:

- Encouragement

- More caffeine

- Money always helps

So you get it, right? I was nervous. Like, can’t-eat-or-sleep-or-relax-I-think-I-have-to-puke nervous. The only nutrition I consumed that day was a slew of caffeinated beverages which I realize, in retrospect, was a terrible idea. The espresso only fueled my anxiety and enhanced the realism of the already-bizarre scenarios that I was exploring in my caffeinated, un-fed brain regarding the many ways that my first day could turn into an embarrassment. I will spare you the crazy details, but they mostly involved forgetting to get dressed or discovering that my name wasn’t really on the list or not making any friends on the first day which translated (in my caffeinated, un-fed brain) to missing the one and only chance of my entire medical school career to ever make friends ever. I stayed up until 2am that night watching “Wizards of Waverly Place” on the Disney Channel. I’m telling you, it was pretty rough.

But then morning came, I remembered to get dressed, and as I headed out the door I noticed a card from Seth sitting atop a new notebook and set of pens. At the bottom of the card, he had added: “P.S: Don’t worry, it’s everybody else’s first day of medical school too.” And then my nerves were gone. I arrived at school to find my name on the list, and then I stood and waited next to a girl who has since become a good friend. As it turned out, I couldn’t have picked a better random person to stand next to! By lunchtime, I was finally calm enough to break my unintentional 36-hour fast and eat some food.

The best part of that day, besides being referred to multiple times as a “future doctor,” was coming home to my parents who arrived Friday afternoon to spend the White Coat weekend with us. Although I have no pictures of our other activities from the weekend besides the White Coat Ceremony, we did a lot: relaxed around the house, walked through town, canoed at the state park, and dined at the amazing Pear Tree Restaurant in Bevier, MO (population:750). Despite being situated right next to “Ugo’s Bait and Tackle” (a popular spot that day for overweight men in faded denim overalls wearing, inexplicably, cardboard party hats) we ate the best steak of our lives.

Below is a brief video of me getting “white-coated,” and a few pictures of the family afterward. The most satisfying part of this ceremony occurred during that very first handshake, which happened to be with the physician who terrified me at my interview the previous fall. He had stared me down over his half-glasses and incessantly tapped his pinky ring (shaped like a horseshoe: he bred Arabians) on the side of the table. He had read all of my mediocre grades out loud, skipped the good ones, and then watched my face as he asked casually, “Do you really think you can handle this?” On this morning, with my white coat over my arm, I smiled at him widely, shook his hand firmly, and accepted his warm congratulations.

Student Doctor Kari Watts! I did keep my maiden name legally & professionally, although I am happy to still be called Mrs. Van Heukelom.

My brother Kyle visited the following weekend, and we again failed to capture our fun on film. But we hope he had a good time away from the concrete jungle of metropolitan New York City! We showed him the town, the goat, and our favorite bar. Seth took him fishing, but they didn’t have too much luck. When they got home, I told Seth that he smelled. Seth said, “Smell like what? Fish…or failure?”

Once Kyle was gone, I missed his company. I did not, however, miss the toilet seat being left up. Or the dark, middle-of-the-night bathroom breaks that became a little more…startling…as a result of said toilet seat.

The first two weeks of school have now flown by and I am in love. I have a few great girlfriends in my class, and if we are not busy with our studies, we are entertained by the unique idiosyncrasies of our classmates. While I hesitate to go into detail, let’s just say that it’s pretty hilarious to get 172 random, type-A people into one space. I’ve got some good stories.

Stay tuned!

While we were working outdoors, we (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘they’)had some trouble trying to pull about a dozen dead stumps out of our yard using a tow rope and the little Civic. Out of the blue, a shirtless man who was missing some teeth and his pajama-clad wife pull up in their 1985 wood-paneled Jeep, climb out of the car, introduce themselves as “the people with the goat,” and offer some assistance with our chore.

Now, Seth and I had only recently noticed this goat, which is housed in a pen across the street. As we walked out to our parked car last week, we heard some nasal bleating and turned around to investigate. The conversation went something like this:

Kari: “Is that a goat?”

Seth: “Yeah.”

While this might seem a little obvious, I have never been neighbors with a goat before—or any farm animal, for that matter—and so I think it kind of begged the question. Seth actually had a family goat once during his childhood years in South Dakota, so I consider him an expert goat-identifier. (His expertise was confirmed, of course, by our new shirtless friend in denim cut-off shorts). Seth’s goat was named “Kuwait” (it was the early 90′s) and sadly, it met an untimely end as the main course of the local church’s Sadr dinner. Never mind that Sadr dinners are normally a Jewish tradition. I’m sure that fact would have just been more upsetting to the goat, who probably would have at least liked to have been killed for the real thing. I told Seth that maybe someday we can get a replacement goat and name him “United Arab Emirates” or “Lebanon.”

So what the shirtless goat guy lacked in clothing or dental hygiene, he made up for in kindness. Although he headed home with less of his rusty rear bumper than he started with, he seemed completely unfazed by the fact that he had just lost a piece of his car to a battle with a stranger’s dead shrub. Here’s a picture of the ultimately unsuccessful group of stump-pullers in action:

One of the guys who wandered over to watch this spectacle was our other neighbor: a young, friendly landscaping professional. I’m sure he thought this was hilarious.

Seth and Greg eventually finished the job with a chainsaw, a shovel, a pick-axe and sheer brawn. And for the record, we let Greg back into the air-conditioned house before the heat advisory officially started. So don’t judge us. We fed him well.

(Seriously though: a big thank-you to Greg for his help and his company!)

Now this goat thing was not our first experience with farm animals here in Kirksville. I was recently delayed at our local post office because the workers were having a disagreement about where they had placed some paperwork about a recent package. A package that, those of us in line soon learned, contained a live chicken. Their conversation went something like this:

Nancy: “Hey, where’s the paperwork about the chicken we sent out yesterday?”

Postal worker #2: “The live chicken?”

Nancy: “Yes, the live chicken. Did we send that First Class? Priority mail?”

Worker #2: “I don’t know. I think the papers are in the cupboard.”

Worker #3 shouts: “Nancy! Are you talking about that chicken?”

Nancy: “Yeah, Larry! How did we send it?”

Worker #3: “I don’t know. How have we sent the other chickens?”

Nancy sighs. “I don’t know about the other chickens! Its in the paperwork.”

Worker #4 sticks his head around the corner: “Is this about that chicken?”

Nancy: “Yeah, how did we send it?”

Worker#4: “I don’t know. We sent it the same way we send all the chickens. “

Nancy: “Priority Mail?”

At this point, I lost track of the conversation because it was my turn at the desk with postal worker #5, Bob, who had just returned from lunch.

“What’s in here?” he asked gruffly.

“A baby gift.”

“Are you sending the baby a bomb?”

“Uh..no.”

“Alcohol?” he continued.

“Definitely not.”

“Right,” he said. “Maybe when the baby’s older.”

“Maybe.”

“Anything explosive?” he continued suspiciously.

“I wouldn’t give a baby something that explodes.”

“Good point,” he concedes. “That’ll be $4.95.”

I love this town.

Naturally, I thought a move to Missouri—Tornado Alley!—would be the greatest thing ever. I could become a doctor AND see my first tornado, which would easily knock off the Big Two items on my lifetime to-do list. I think you can see where this is going. My excitement about the increased tornado potential was short-sighted, to say the least. Short-sighted in that I never considered that a tornado could come near my house. At night. I thought maybe I would be watching one in the day time from across a big field or something. Not. always. true.

So here is a picture of us in the basement…the first time:

We learned that a tornado-producing storm was coming in the usual way: by trying to find our county’s square amongst many other squares on the tiny map in the corner of the TV screen. We saw that our county was a “hot-pink” shade, not deep red like the others, so at first we thought we were okay. Then we realized that no, actually hot pink was the “tornado warning” color. It didn’t help that of the 6 different watches and warnings going on, this station had assigned all of them only shades of pink and red. I think maybe they let the 19-year-old intern pick the colors that day. So deciphering our situation was a little like, “Wait so are we the thunderstorm watch still or is that flash-flood? Or thunderstorm warning like in that square right there? Oh, the pink is a tornado? An active, confirmed funnel cloud heading our way? Oh, ok. Glad we’re clear on that. Please, don’t worry about interrupting regular programming, because this episode of “Seinfeld” is only about 15 years old. So definitely, that’s the priority right now.“

Thanks to the app on my iPhone, we were able to monitor the weather bulletins from the basement. They called off the tornado warning even while the storm was overhead, so we headed back upstairs to keep an eye on the television. Moments later, the meteorologist finally broke in to say there was a tornado on the ground just south of Kirksville from the storm that just passed over us. Seriously. The National Weather Service had “misjudged the tornado-producing capacity of the storm.” Awesome.

There was a third warning after this one, but it was safely south of us. Seth had already headed to bed, but I was wide awake. I’m pretty sure my situation was magnified by the fact that I had just watched a storm-chasing documentary the day before, the theme of which was: the failure of early warning systems to save lives. So here I am at 1 a.m., obsessively watching the radar, sure that a tornado is going to plow into my house unannounced at any moment. (After confessing this fear later to Seth’s disc golf friend Peter, he reassured me by saying, “Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise. I mean, you’d hear it eating a few houses around you before it got to yours.” Super.)

This situation would have been less traumatic if I had been wrong. But moments later, the cable “emergency alert system” went crazy, our county turned hot pink, tornado sirens sounded, and my favorite meteorologist came back on to tell us that another tornado-producing storm was headed right for us. And it was the worst one so far. And get out of our mobile homes, etc. And now, back to regular programming. Now, you guys: regular programming at 1 a.m. was an infomercial for a Jack LaLane juicer. And as tasty as a glass of pineapple-passion fruit juice looked at the moment, I had other things to worry about. Not sure if you heard, but there was a tornado coming.

After wind, hail, a fountain of water coming out of the wall in our basement, and repeated reassurances from the Weather Channel that the worst had passed, I finally headed to bed around 3:30 a.m. And thus, the Curse of Tornado Alley had begun. What curse, you say? Oh, just the curse where I believe that every single storm that comes my way could suddenly and without warning produce a deadly twister.

The moral of the story is: I like to watch tornado videos…I don’t want to be featured in one. They would play eerie music and begin with something totally cliche, like:  “July 20th had dawned a bright and sunny day. The residents of Kirksville, Missouri had no reason to believe that something terrifying was in store for them. By the next morning, there would be no Kirksville left….“

Dramatic? Okay, maybe. But that’s the Curse, man.

Since pictures don’t always say 1000 words, I thought I would shoot a little video as well. That way, whatever words the pictures don’t say, I can just say instead. So let’s start with that. Enjoy!

Now, let’s move on to the before-and-afters! We’ll start with the living room. No painting job done here, just some set-up and organization.

LIVING ROOM BEFORE: Just a pile of stuff and 2 sleeping boys.

AFTER:

Next, it’s on to the dining room! As you can see in the 3rd picture above, it is situated just off of the living room, where the patterned curtains are. That picture is taken while standing in the front entryway.

DINING ROOM BEFORE:

AFTER:

In the right-hand corner closest to the camera, there is a built-in white hutch that we can’t see in this picture. One of the cooler features that reminds us that our home was built in 1933. We did include it in the video above, and who doesn’t want to watch a home video where a china hutch is taped and discussed?

On to the kitchen! Goodbye, purple. Hello, blue.

BEFORE SHOT #1:

Please excuse my appearance in this picture. I think its pretty obvious that we haven’t had running water for a day or two.

AFTER SHOT #1:

BEFORE SHOT #2:

Yikes!

AFTER SHOT #2:

Aaah. Much better.

Now, the bedroom.

BEFORE #1:

This room has so much personality, don’t you think?

AFTER #1:

BEFORE #2:

I get anxiety re-visiting this mess.

AFTER #2:

Just waiting for a comforter to arrive that matches those pillowcases. Its a very Zen space, I think.

Now one of my favorite rooms…the Reading Room/Future Guest Bedroom. I guess we should include ” /Workout Room,” since that’s where we use our treadmill. So really, its a room devoted to physical and intellectual exercise! If you know how much we love books, it comes as no surprise that we devoted an entire room to the consumption of literature. And if you know how heavy that treadmill is, it comes as no surprise that we left it in the space closest to the front door. And by “we,” I mean “not me because the boys were here so why would I do any heavy lifting.”

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The treadmill is in the front right-hand corner. We LOVE this space.

Since the bathroom didn’t undergo any dramatic transformations, I’ll just include the “after” shot:

And one quick shot of the outside:

And that concludes our basic tour! Hope you enjoyed our “Parade of Home” and our first home video. With all the before-and-afters, I feel like we did an incredibly amateur version of an HGTV show, without that montage in the middle that shows all the work being done while a clock ticks away in the corner of the tv screen.

Seth’s mom is heading out to visit tomorrow, so we look forward to exploring more of the area with her. You know who else should come visit? YOU.

It’s time to catch you up on our Michigan-Missouri transition. I know you’ll be disappointed to learn that this is not the post containing our house pictures, but that exciting event is coming in the next day or two! I have a few finishing touches I want to make before the big “before & after” room reveals. I gotta do something to keep you coming back, right?

Our race to the finish line in Michigan began with our final days of work. Seth and I were so blessed to go to work each night with amazing co-workers who became special friends. Wesley, one of my night shift nursing co-workers in the emergency room, was also accepted into medical school and left his position the same week that I did. We organized a farewell gathering at a local pub and enjoyed a very memorable night with some of our favorite staff members. Here are a few shots:

Branden RN gifted Wesley and I each a “Light-Up Medical Kit”! It says ages 3+ on the box so we are totally qualified to use them. No medical degree required! I’m keeping it on my desk as a permanent reminder of where I came from…and also maybe to play with once in a while when I’m sick of studying.

Pretty girls! This is before we headed over to Wild Bull, only to learn that it was an 18-and-up night (never a good idea). After being hit on by a few teenagers, we started to feel a little too much like cougars and finished the night singing  along to some Journey at Monaco Bay instead.

There was a little intrigue to our night as well! Well, besides the mystery of whether or not letting teenagers into a bar is just asking for trouble. An anonymous donor sent a beautiful, delicious cake to the pub for our party! We still don’t know who was responsible, but it was incredibly thoughtful. Thank you, cake purchaser! Here it is:

Good Luck, Wes! You’re going to be amazing.

Our last days of work came and went. It was an emotional beginning to an emotional final week of residence in Michigan. We savored every moment with our friends and family. We had picnics, barbecues, and beach days and then we packed, cleaned, and loaded. Here was our task on Loading Day:

I never thought we would utilize the entire 16-foot truck, but we did. Top to bottom. Apparently we have a lot of stuff. A huge thank-you to our parents for their invaluable assistance (and at times, sheer physical strength). We appreciate you!

And so, we were off! Yeah, we were definitely sad. But man, we were really excited too. With me in the car and Seth feeling like a big man in the Penske truck, we departed on Wednesday, June 30th. I knew Seth was feeling pretty masculine in the truck because every time he climbed in, he flexed his muscles and said, “I’m a man!” I’m not sure who he was trying to impress at the rest stops, but it was cute.

After what felt like the longest drive in history, but was in fact only around 9 hours, we arrived in Kirksville around dinner time. Seth’s best friends, Brooks & Dave, wouldn’t be arriving to help with unloading until the middle of the night and so we unloaded what we could ourselves, ordered some pizza, and then set up camp on the floor:

I don’t use the word “camp” lightly. Although one of the first places we visited in Kirksville was City Hall so that we could sign up to get our water turned on, the next available appointment was Friday afternoon. We were prepared for just such a problem. After buying several gallons of water and setting some strict bathroom rules (especially for the boys), we were ready to live for a few days, second-world country style. I would say third-world because it sounds more dramatic, but we had air conditioning the whole time so that would have just been a lie.

The boys arrived from Chicago around 2am, after an 8-hour drive that should have only lasted 6 hours. Apparently they thought it would be fun to have their GPS take them here via country roads. We may have failed to mention that back roads are kind of the only option for the last 100 miles. So stay on an actual highway for as long as you can.

After unloading in the morning, it was time for a nap before an afternoon of disc golf:

It must have been the tour of Kirksville that exhausted them. It was a fun-filled five minutes.

In the 36 hours they were here, the boys unloaded, napped, disc golfed, unloaded more, feasted on Kirksville’s finest Mexican fare, and ate almost all 12 of those ice cream bars in our freezer. After a goodbye breakfast at Pancake City (open 24 hours!), we sent them on their way. I know they were sad to go, but they were probably pretty relieved to get back to a place where there was running water and no rules governing what you can and can’t do in the bathroom. Here are the boys in their last few minutes together:

Brooks was definitely the only person in Kirksville with Ray-Bans.

There are so many things I could say here, but I won’t.

Thank you for being our first visitors, boys! We love you.

After finally getting our water turned on (which took about 2 minutes and helped us understand why we waited 36 hours for such an extensive procedure), we were anxious to get cleaned up. Seth was supposed to mow the lawn that afternoon, but he sneaked into the shower while I was doing some cleaning. When it was my turn to shower, he belatedly announced that the water heater wasn’t on. It took a few minutes to get that figured out, and then I asked him about mowing the lawn. The conversation went like this:

Seth: “Well, I can’t mow the lawn because I kind of already took a shower.”

Kari: “I thought you said that the hot water was off earlier.”

Seth: “It was.”

Kari: “You took a cold shower?”

Seth: “Yeah.”

Kari: “Seth, did you willingly take an ice cold shower so that when the moment came where I asked you about the lawn, you could say ‘I can’t mow it ’cause I already took a shower?’”

Seth: “Yeah.”

He did get the lawn mowed the next day, and in our next post we’ll show you a picture of the brick patio that we uncovered. In the meantime, he put his barbecue skills to use as we broke in our brand new grill:

We spent the Fourth of July weekend attending town events, the first of which was a pie auction. Along with about 300 other locals, who were almost all over the age of 60, we watched a very intense auctioneer sell homemade pies from the afternoon’s pie tasting contest. The winning apple pie sold for $280! It was a little surprising because the second-place pie had gone for about 35 bucks. The showdown for the winning pie was an epic battle between two people who both happened to be running for elected office this summer. I’m not saying they were bidding as a bribe, I’m just saying this is the kind of town where someone buying your pie could definitely earn some votes.

The following night, we attended the Kirksville Talent Show! The belly dancer didn’t win, but in her defense, she had actually removed her name from judging. She claimed she was just there to “share her talents.” And that she did. She did so much sharing, in fact, that the Baptist minister covered his 4-year-old’s eyes during the entire performance. You’ll be relieved to learn that the winner was a local teenage girl who won the hearts of the judges by singing (and dressing!) as Pocahontas with “Colors of the Wind.”

Fun so far! House pictures in the next day or two. If you visit, maybe we’ll bid on a pie for you. And that IS a bribe!

Friday morning dawned a dark and stormy day. In fact, it pre-dawned a dark and stormy day, because 4am was the ungodly hour that Seth, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and myself hit the road in a little red Saturn to battle the elements. Now, Seth and I did not see the movie Clash of the Titans for many reasons. Not the least of which is that it looked like it was really stupid. And there were snakes in it. But even if we had wanted to see it, the first four hours of this road trip were so similar to an epic battle between warring gods that we would have no use for the movie now. I’m talking torrential downpours, lightning everywhere, and thunder that we could feel vibrate the seat beneath us. The weathermen were predicting a “major tornado outbreak” from this storm cell; naturally, that didn’t add to our anxiety at all. And of course, we also had Seth’s continual audio loop of, “Whoa, did you see that? Whoa! Hey, did you guys see that?” This is where we give props to my mother-in-law for safely transporting us through the worst of what Thor-God-of-Thunder threw our way.

The rest of that drive passed uneventfully, and except for a late hotel check-in (they were having a roll-a-way bed crisis) and Ahna’s boyfriend calling us from Florida after a fire ant attack (you read that right), we made it in plenty of time to celebrate with Jesse & family.

The following morning, Jesse and his fellow graduates were entertained with an eccentric author as their commencement speaker. Some universities get the President of the United States to address them on such a momentous occasion. Jesse got…this guy. He told us about that time he was in the hospital and on so many drugs that he thought the bear in his room was going to murder the goldfish in his toilet. And also, he added, bedpans are really uncomfortable. It was no surprise to learn that he had not prepared an actual speech.

After wisdom like that, it was time to party! Here is the cake Jesse & Kathy picked out for the occassion:

Perfect for a new physician, right?

Here’s a shot of the proud family:

Maverick and Everett were not into it.

A favorite shot of Ahna and Everett:

After showering Jesse with gifts and well wishes, it was time to pack up the happy family and get them moved out to Michigan! As the men disassembled and loaded, I sank into the Swamp of Despair. Which is what I named the suspicious layer that I cleaned out of the bottom of the fridge. At one point, I required a chisel. We also found a stapler in the freezer, but that remains an unsolved mystery.

Here’s what everyone else was busy with:

During the packing adventure, Seth lost his pants. He changed into shorts and in the mix, his pants were packed, boxed and sent up to join the pile of 50 similar-looking boxes. Seth mis-remembered that he had left his wallet in those lost jeans, so loading was suspended for nearly an hour as the epic Search for Seth’s Pants (and belt! He loves that belt) was underway. Seth admitted later that he realized about 20 minutes into the search that he had actually stowed his wallet safely away in the car. Though he should have called the more frantic search off at that point, he defended himself to me later by adding, “I just really wanted my pants…and belt.” He was happily reunited with his traveling pants about a week later.

The following morning, our nephew Everett was baptized. Here’s a favorite shot of Seth’s mom holding him during the service:

After the festivities, Seth and I packed Everett up with us and drove him the 12 hours back to Michigan. We stopped in Stuart, Iowa for a break a few hours in and, because we had an infant in tow, soon became the stars of this rural Burger King. When you have a baby, people stare at you. Here’s a few pics of us trying acting like we know what we’re doing with a baby while the BK patrons and employees continue to stare at us (off-camera):

The teenage girls at the counter thought Seth was the greatest guy ever. As it turns out, Everett is a total chick magnet.

This is right before he spit up on my leg. I was so busy cleaning up, I didn’t notice the elderly couple just off-camera to the right who happily watched the whole ordeal. I’m telling you, we were superstars at this place! But every time someone asked us a question, I awkwardly spit out “Um, I just have to let you know that he’s not ours.”

The rest of the trip went smoothly, except for the part where I left my wallet on the roof of the car while buying potato skins at a gas station in Peru, Illinois. After discovering my loss back in Kalamazoo, I never expected to get a message the next day from a special guy named Bryan Smith, who found my wallet on the on-ramp to I-80 East, called my credit card company and realtor and urged them to get a hold of me, and later shipped me the wallet because it was clear that I would not be in the neighborhood of Peru again anytime soon. Good Samaritan of the century!

I guess the lesson here is that I should be much more careful with my valuables when shopping for junk food on interstate road trips. Or anytime, really.