The lingo, the insanity, and the stones.

Here's what's been on my mind this week (I'm sure you're just dying to know!):

Residency programs.  I've been a busy little bee informally researching residency programs for Dr. Trenty Poo.  He's currently leaning toward family med, unless he discovers he likes something else better over the course of his rotations this year, so that's what I've been looking into. 

As a little background info, I was added to a couple of facebook groups by a friend, Lives of Doctor Wives, and LDS Doctor Wives. I thought they seemed weird, a little silly, and a little dramatic at first, but I will tell you that I really kind of enjoy them now, and have learned a lot of useful information from them about how things like interviewing, applying for residencies, good qualities to look for in a residency program, etc. I think I mostly have the lingo down now.  My DrH is MS3 and I'm looking into dual accredited, unopposed FM programs that he will begin PGY1. See, lingo down.

Anyway, as far as researching family med (the aforementioned FM) programs, the most useful info I've gained from the fb group has been that of unopposed family med programs. Basically what it means is that there are no other competing programs (i.e. internal med, emergency med, OBGYN) at the same facility, which results in the FM residents getting more experience with a variety of patients/procedures/pathology, than they would if there were residents from other specialties working in the same hospital. As is logical, a lot of the bigger cities or big med school hospitals have multiple specialty programs in them, so it's been interesting to look into all the programs and see where they are.  There are some unopposed programs that might not make the cut to our application list because they are WAY out in the boonies.  I've got to be able to hit up Target or Kohls on occasion...and being within a few hours of an airport and temple would be nice.  But we haven't really started the official list yet, just gathering info.

The other thing we've been looking for, where DO residencies are concerned, is it seems like a good thing to find a program that is dual accredited, or in other words, it accepts both MD and DO students.  Well, I think most MD programs will accept a DO student if they have taken the MD boards--USMLE (Trent has/will) but there are also programs that take both types of degrees whether you've taken the USMLE or COMLEX (DO boards--which Trent has/will have also taken).

So in a nutshell that is what I've been looking at.  And from there you can look at the benefits/educational info, which is really exciting! Seeing that many schools fully pay insurance for the resident and his family, and vision and dental, life insurance, disability (and disability for HIV if you contract during residency--yikes!), as well as paying for licensing, board prep, housing stipend, etc, etc, makes me really hope we can get into one of those schools, instead of one of the ones with lots of "No"s on the list of benefits. I've mostly been looking in AZ, NV, TX, and the midwest, as well as a tiny bit in the northwest.

The other thing on my mind has been exercising.  Trent has been telling me since he started med school that I need to exercise because my genes are working against me.  My dad had a major heart attack almost 10 years ago and is now diabetic, so I figured I had probably better start trying to be healthier.  Because let's be honest, I've never been a regular exerciser in my life.  I didn't do sports or dance or anything that had me active on a daily basis.  I did poorly in a P.E. class at BYU because my workout log was crap.

So the past couple of weeks I've been trying to do better, I went to yoga and aerobics each once at the church, and did my Gold's Gym 30 minute videos about 3 times, all in the course of 12 days I think. And that was really good for me.  And then Trent got some birthday money and bough the Insanity workout DVDs from someone on Craigslist.  So yesterday we did the fit test at the beginning of the program. And well....we couldn't even finish it! Haha. That is how out of shape we are.  Today we jumped right into the first cardio workout (which we also had to stop and rest a few times during the end) but we did it! Day 2 of 60 down! That being said, Trent will be in Tucson after we finish the first month, so we won't get to to do them together straight through.  I'm thinking about signing up for a 5k around Thanksgiving, to give me some motivation to keep moving while Trent is gone.

I've never really made it more than a week at trying to work out consistently, so I'm pretty proud of myself (it's been 15 days now, with 7 work outs, I believe).  Also, I'm not noticing amazing differences, but I do feel pretty good.  Kind of one of those you don't know what you're missing till you try things...I felt fine before, but I feel better now, even in just 2 weeks. And bonus, I think it will be good for my self-esteem to feel like I can do it.  Which may sound weird, but as someone who never worked out consistently, it always seemed unattainable to be in good shape (I'm a wimp), but now I feel like I could get there eventually.

I told Trent I am going to buy some new work out clothes if I can do it consistently for a month.  I did cheat a couple of days ago and buy a cute magenta work out shirt (I don't know what else you call it...) that was on clearance at Target for $6.48 (they are usually $20 there, which is way out of my range....$6.50 felt like s splurge even, haha). But if we do good and keep it up until my original month is over, then I think I will buy some pants or something, but I may check out Ross to see if I can find a better deal. 

I've been trying to plan healthier meals too. I made a 2 lbs. of dried pinto beans in the crockpot and got about 12 cups of homemade refried beans out of that. We had tostadas with those (no meat) and it was super delicious (Trent and I thought).  The boys were not big fans.  I don't know what to do with them. I don't know if I could really convince them to eat more fruits and vegetables unless I purged the house of everything else so they had to starve or eat them.  But I don't really see that happening, so we will see.  I've got stuff for lettuce wraps and Caroline's yummy black bean salad, or in other words, delicious to me, a dinner-induced fit in the making for William and empty tummy for Joe.

Ooh, and on an unrelated note, I just bought a bunch of birthstone gemstones for my sadly neglected shop! Yay! More cute mommy necklaces, here I come! I have a couple of cute ideas for them, so hopefully I can get some cranked out, photo'd, and posted in time for Christmas shopping!  I also have more rosette earrings to make, which I may work on while listening to Conference tomorrow.