Catch-Up!

I feel like I've been secluded in my little house and routine, probably because I am, and I keep on thinking, 'I need to put this picture in my blog!' and then don't. But now I am. Here's what's been keeping me and Jer and Mr. T busy.

Baking. I love love love to eat sweet things. And since the stuff at the store is expensive and not always tasty I also love to make it myself. I recently made a key lime trifle with homemade shortbread, which turned out picture perfect, as you can see below. :)

Also, for April Fool's I made mashed potato cupcakes! It's just a cupcake with a smooshed yellow starburst and caramel syrup. I thought it was funny. Probably because I love puns and silly things. No one else was super amused, though. Oh well.

Jeremy finally finished all of his classes! HOORAY! He studied a lot and has worked really hard.

Jeremy had a week break between his finals and the start of his clinical rotation, so in between more studying he did a lot of fishing. Jeremy's new favorite thing is beach fishing and Tayvin loves it too. He is always asking to go "Catch a fish! Catch a fish!" He always wants to hold it and feel it move.

The last time we went to the beach I brought an intertube along to see if Tayvin would like it. He loved it and carried it around the entire time. He even loves it in the tub. :)

 

Tayvin loves lizards and frogs and bugs. I love the lizards and frogs b/c they eat they bugs! Every night we get at least two of these geckos on our outside window, and sometimes a tree frog. Tayvin calls them "slithers", although he really is trying to say lizards.

I found this in our garage as we were getting ready to go somewhere. Thankfully the garage door was open and he was on his way out. This is the biggest spider I have currently seen in Savannah. I know bigger ones exist, and they can stay far, far away.

This is what is helping me keep busy here at home. We made two above ground gardens in the backyard (I say we, but mean Jeremy. He bought the wood and put them together. I just spray painted them.) and planted some vegetables that I raised from seeds and strawberries. The bugs were terrible, so I sprayed an insecticidal soap and planted some marigolds and most of them seem to have left. Take that, bugs!

These curved bricks were originally ringed around the tree in our front yard, only the roots had pushed them out of position and it looked awful. I moved them to line the bushes in our front yard, but they didn't extend all the way and I thought it looked goofy. When I saw we had extra dirt from our garden I took the bricks and made some little planters in the corners of our yard. There are nasturtiums that I grew from seeds on the left and some native plant that I stole from a canal on the right, along with some lily thing that grows in our backyard.

More lilies, nasturtiums, and a fern that I bought. I was so happy that the nasturtiums did so well. I tried planting impatiens and poppies, but the impatiens only had 4 seeds in the bag (total ripoff!), none of which sprouted, and the poppies are struggling. Oh well.

I love my garden! I have heirloom and roma tomatoes, basil, red onion, sweet onion, banana peppers, lettuce and strawberries from right to left in the big box, bell peppers and eggplant in the little box, and cilantro and thyme in the pots, along with a couple late-start nasturtiums that will be transplanted soon. And my marigolds standing guard around the edges. I tried something called companion planting, and it wasn't perfect, but something fun to try. The organizer side of my brain got a kick out of planning my garden.

This past Monday Jeremy started his first rotation at Memorial Hospital here in Savannah. He's doing Internal Medicine, which is tough because it covers just about everything. The schedule is a little erratic and there was a rough start. Whoever was in charge of the orientation for the PA students (Jeremy and three of his classmates) really dropped the ball. Nobody told them anything when they got there, so Jeremy felt like he had been dropped into the deep end of the pool head first. He now has his ID badge, security clearance and a pager so he can actually get into the hospital wards to see his patients (there's a funny story along with that, I'll see if Jeremy will share). 

Another funy story: Monday night Jeremy came home with his pager and was studying. At 10pm the pager went off, Code Blue, attending physician needed, or something to that affect. Code Blue means someone is dying. So Jeremy was rushing around calling the medical students to see what was going on and if he needed to go in. It turns out the hospital pages everyone for things like that, so there was no need to worry. But Jeremy got a little adrenaline rush worrying that he needed to run to the hospital. He said he now understands how paramedics feel.

Here's what Jeremy does at the hospital. He is part of a group of two residents, two medical students, and himself, who are under an attending physician. His attending dr. happens to be the head director of internal medicine. Score. On a typical day Jeremy goes in the morning and sees two patients, takes their history, does a physical, and figured out what they have and how to treat it. He then goes to the attending physician and presents his findings. There are resident doctors above Jeremy who have also seen the patient and given the doctor charts to look at, so Jeremy is really just practicing. After that he goes and checks on patients with the doctor, looks at patient charts, lab results, etc. and studies them so he can familiarize himself with what they look like and how his patients are doing. 

Every four days Jeremy in "on call." That means he has to be at the hospital at seven and is in the ER seeing patients with his attending physician. This is the day he wears scrubs to work. He is "on call" until 7pm, possibly as late as 10:30pm, although that hasn't happened yet. Then the next day he is also in scrubs and is doing follow up visits with the patients he saw the previous day. Jeremy is actually doing everything that he could be doing in the future, just under the watchful eye of his attending physician. It's pretty cool to hear him tell me about the patients he has seen and what he gets to do. His attending physician is also really good about teaching Jeremy and pushing him to remember what he has learned in his classes. It's been a good experience so far, and there are only 4 weeks left, so it goes by fast! After this all the other rotations will seem easy.

So that's what's happening here in Savannah! Right now we're planning on setting up Jeremy's last two rotations out West and moving this December. I'll be honest and admit that we can't wait to get away from the heat and the bugs, but it will be hard to pull the the little roots we've made. We have sooo many good friends down here, but a lot of them are moving too. I can't wait to see my family, though. It will be a good Christmas this year. :)