7.18.2010

Update!

I’m back!

Boy it’s been a long time and a lot has happened since I last wrote! I’m having trouble writing about anything in detail since it has been so long. If I expounded on southern tea parties (actual tea parties, not the political tea party), or the range of emotions one feels when looking for theright job, or heat and humidity so bad that after thirty, no, ten seconds outside one is glistening (read sweating) all over, you would be lost and confused. Thus, this post is simply an update so that we can catch up and hopefully pick back up where we left off.

As you know, it all started on Match Day when Scott was matched to Duke for his Internal Medicine Residency. Shortly after that day we began preparations to move here. We bought our first house (as you saw in my last post) and with that purchase a whole bunch of other busy work came with it that took up most of our "free" time. Once we moved all of our time has been taken up with making our new house our home! So, ready for this fast-forward update? Here goes!

Scott graduated from medical school.

So proud!!

I worked my last day of work at the University of Iowa. It was so surreal to work my last day at my first real, post-college job. On that day I had a potluck with my coworkers that I spent the last two years with, that I developed friendships with, and who were my first "real" coworkers at my first "real" job. I miss it and my wonderful coworkers!

Me in the lab

My desk!

The night of my last day of work Scott and I drove to my hometown for one of my high school friend’s wedding. It was a wonderful wedding and a great reunion with an amazing group of girls!

The girls and I

Sunday, we drove back to Iowa City and started packing, and packing, and packing. Nearly everything we owned was packed in boxes by Monday night. However, I still had some food left in the fridge and freezer and because I’m Dutch (read cheap) I couldn’t throw it away. Thus, this lead to some creative ways to prepare food . . . and the discovery that you can make “hard-boiled” eggs simply by placing an egg directly on an oven rack at 350F and leaving it in there for 12-15 minutes. I also learned that microwave scrambled eggs aren’t all that bad.
Tuesday some wonderful people from church and work showed up throughout the day and helped us load our GIANT 26ft. truck (we originally reserved at 16ft truck, but through unavailability and free upgrades wound up with a 26ft truck). Wednesday we cleaned all day long. It was exhausting and no fun at all, though I did learn why it is very important to move the stove and fridge out at least once a year and clean behind them. I solemnly intend to do this regularly in our own house!

Finally, late Wednesday night we’d had enough of cleaning, and left for Moline, IL where we were meeting Scott’s parents and staying the night. Thursday we drove all day and stopped in West Virginia for the night. We ate at an Olive Garden and our waiter was the most interesting waiter I’ve ever had. He sat down in the booth with us and told us stories and talked about how tired he was from his long day of work with a thick southern, mountain-region, redneck accent. I don't think he meant to be, but he was very entertaining!

I've never seen a cuter truck driver in my life!


Here we are waiting for hours after closing for the seller's realtor to show up and give us the keys. We were so bored we even unloaded some of the truck only to set our stuff on the driveway!

After unpacking and painting the majority of the inside of our house, we escaped to the beach with Scott's family and had two wonderful days there. I'm so excited to be living near an ocean now!

The view from our hotel window

When Scott's family left, we spent the next week building and planting our raised-garden beds. we've since harvested lots of herbs, one Japanese eggplant, two cherry tomatoes, and one roma tomato with many more on the way!

Our third week in NC my family arrived to help us build a deck for our house.

While the men worked, my mom and I attended a picture-book tea party hosted by my dear friend and former college roommate.

We all agreed my friend could give Ms. Martha Stewart a run for her money!

The menu, with fresh cut flowers from her yard
Homemade raspberry cordial anyone?

Due to the intense heat we decided to skip out on construction work the next day and hit the beach!
Scott and my younger (I can't call him "little" anymore!) brother catching some waves

After the beach and tea party, we settled down and got to work and whipped out this beauty in four days thanks to my (architect) dad!
We love our deck! Thank you dad!

After my parents left Scott immediately started residency . . . and I haven't seen him since. Seriously though, while he is busy, Scott and I try to make the most of our time together and do fun things, like hike around Lake Jordan.

This little guy was on our path and he was quite a ways away from the water, I hope he makes it to where he's going!
Scott with some cool, rainbow colored fungi. (Or are they lichen? See below for a close up.) If you think his hat looks like a 60 year old man would wear it, you're right. My dad originally bought it at the beach and Scott (who rarely wears hats because he doesn't like how they look on him) took a liking to this hat claiming it makes for excellent sun protection. Oddly enough I'm attracted to it. It is like when the first few guys were brave enough to wear pink shirts (before it was popular) because they were "man-enough" and didn't worry about what others thought because they were confident in themselves. That's how it is for me with Scott and this hat.

While Scott's working I have been applying for many, many jobs and sometimes an angel of a friend calls and gives me an excuse to stop applying for jobs and get out of the house. One time that excuse was to check out the North Carolina botanical gardens where I saw my first ever venus fly trap, which apparently is NC's state flower!
If you're wondering, we did test the fly trap's abilities by poking a stick in the center of the flowers and some of them do close quite quickly!

Lastly, we went back home for a week for Scott's brother's wedding and it was so good to be home again!

Congrats you two!

That's all folks! You're a trooper if you've read this far!
Recipe coming next time . . .


1 comment:

  1. Enjoyed that so much Whitney! I love the pictures w/ descriptions--what an excellent idea!
    We'll have to see what else we can discover 'round these parts--yee haw!

    ReplyDelete