InstaFriday

Another 2 weeks of photos. I promise I will try to get better. I don't promise that it will be successful though...

This is funny, but really... does life even exist before coffee? I'm fairly certain that I don't talk to anyone before I have my coffee.

Oh sunsets, how I love thee! Seriously, sunsets are always such a sweet reminder of God's love and creativity! This was after leaving Shelby Farms one night. So incredible!

I already talked about when Jamie and I went to dinner at Oshi. And how we ended up at Silly Goose playing oversized Jenga. Such a fun night!

We gave out bottles of water to people walking to Cooper Young Fest. Then while we were gone we left the cooler out so that people could get some if they needed it. People are very skeptical of free things. When we came back, someone had taken a bottle of water and left a dollar in the cooler.

I saw this in the parking lot at work. What?! I have no words! By the way, the cars weren't touching...

I have a student with me at work. She sent me this. I laughed out loud. And then forwarded it to my friends.

I know I already posted this, but I love these girls. And we're really cute!

Wow! This past weekend was insane! I need a do-over...

Yesterday was Megan's birthday! I'll be in Nashville on Sunday for her shower so I'll get to celebrate with her in person then, but this will have to do for now. I am so thankful for her friendship. We have shared plenty of laughter and tears. I have probably cried more than her, but what's new? I am so thankful that God placed her into my life when he did. It's crazy to think that we have been friends for 10 years now!

Weekend Shenanigans

So now that we're all caught up on the past few weeks, let's get to this past weekend...

Friday night, I went to dinner with friends. We hadn't all gotten together in a while so it was long overdue. We went back to Oshi, because it was delicious! And this time we did get the spiked milkshakes. I got something called the Kentucky Head Hunter. It had bourbon, apple brandy, ice cream, and bacon dust. It was kind of like an apple pie in a cup. With alcohol. So good!

We happened to be down there on trolley night so we jumped on the trolley and drove down to some of the shops and art galleries. I love trolley night!

We decided not to take the trolley back and just walk instead. The weather was perfect! We walked around and caught up on each other's lives. Then stopped random strangers to take our pictures.

After our walk, the old married people left and Jamie and I walked around some more. Everyone had been out early for trolley night but were starting to leave so we decided to go to Overton again. We ended up running into some of her coworkers so we spent the rest of the night with them, closing down the bar. There are so many things that I could say about this night. Or the following day. Or church on Sunday, but I'll leave the sappy feelings post for another day...

This coming weekend is going to be insane! I have a friend getting married in Atlanta, so my roommate and I are driving down Saturday morning. We'll party the night away in the ATL and then Sunday morning I'm driving to Nashville for my bestie's wedding shower for the day before driving back to Memphis. It's going to be a lot of driving. And it's going to be rough going back to work on Monday! I thought about taking the day off, but I'm going to be gone the entire next week, so I decided to power through it!

Catching Up on the Fun

So I missed another week or so of blogging. Oops! I'm not going to apologize for it this time though. But I will give my excuse... I was too busy living life! Ha!

But for real, I usually pre-blog on the weekends and the past few weekends I was too busy so it didn't happen. Then I went back to work and things got crazy and I just didn't find the time. But I'm back and have a lot to talk about so this is just going to be the abridged version.

I'll tell the story in pictures, since I haven't posted an InstaFriday in a few weeks...

It all started 2 weeks ago. The rooms and I decided to go out and actually see how normal people do life. For me, this meant that Friday after work I came home, drank a cup of coffee, and then took a power nap. It was a game-changer! The coffee started working just around the time that I woke up from my nap and I was caffeinated and ready to go!

We went to dinner at Oshi, a Japanese burger place downtown. It sounds like an odd combination, but it was delicious! The burgers were great!

We both got the honeydew melon sangria. Yum! They had spiked milkshakes too, but we didn't have the room for them. We'll be back though...

After dinner, we headed to a speakeasy that one of Jamie's friends suggested. It was kinda dead so we didn't stay long. I got a Pimm's which was good, but we only stuck around for one drink before moving on to Local Downtown. I got a flight of whiskey because I'm badass like that. Also, it was called Battle of the Big Boys. Win, win!

While at Local, we started talking to a new friend. His friends ended up leaving him so he joined us at the next bar. They also had oversized jenga so we had to partake! It was a tiring night, but lots of fun!

The next day, I woke up early to attempt to be productive. Then I met a friend for a pedicure, lunch, and we headed out to Germantown Fest to do some craft shopping. This is the only picture that I took, but the sushi was well worth it!

That night was the night of the Southern Heritage Classic so we were basically trapped in our house for most of the night. We decided to get out and go to dinner. We initially walked down to Cooper Young, but nothing really looked good so we jumped on the Roo and headed to Overton Square. We ended up at Babalu because it's delicious and I can't turn it down. Overton Square was super quiet. The bartenders agreed with us. But we ate dinner and then they made us a leg spreader shot. It was a little sweet, but really good.

The next weekend was Cooper Young fest! It started Friday night with the 4-miler. Always such a fun race! There were even a group of people that ran the whole race with hula hoops!

 

There are always so many people out partying and cheering everyone on. It really does make the run go by so much faster. And Memphis Made brewery created a beer just for the after party called Mile 5. So good! But I'm pretty sure I would think any beer was good after running 4 miles.

The next day was the festival. I went out with some friends early to walk around. Then came back to the house for a break. Jamie had people over to grill out and hang out so I ate lunch and hung out with people before walking back down. It was just so hot and crowded in the afternoon. The morning was definitely the time to go!

That night we decided to continue the festivities and grab dinner and drinks. We ended up at Celtic with about half of Midtown. It was really crowded which made it fun and we both ran into people that we knew. Always... entertaining!

But going back and forth between the festival and my house (multiple times) got me lots of steps in!

And there we go- the past 2 weekends. The short version is that I basically did too much and then had to go into a crazy work week tired and trying to catch up on sleep. Not ideal...

Sunday Smiles

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With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation.

-Isaiah 12:3

30 x 30: The End

Crossed off the first thing on my 30x30 list!

I technically did this on August 24, but I gave it a month before I wrote about it because I wanted to make sure that it stuck. And because I don't entirely trust myself. But I've made it a month, so I'm counting this one as a win.

1 down, 29 to go!

And my dad just booked our tickets to Costa Rica in a couple weeks!!

InstaFriday

Here's to 2 weeks of pictures...

Last weekend, I was going for a run at Shelby Farms and I had to change my course because of the renaissance fair. So weird, and yet really cool at the same time. I may have walked through it to look at things for a little while before continuing on my run!

We had a baby shower for 2 of our docs. Although, it turned out to be just one, because the other doctor's wife had her baby that afternoon. We face-timed them in for a little while to say hi!

When I first saw this at Kroger, my initial thought was, "why does that girl have a trach?!" Admit it! You thought it too!

Day 1 of Munday Funday. Lots of time hanging out in the pool. And lots of laughs trying to get my grandmother on that float!

* Side note: My shoulders look really good in that picture!

Day 2 of Munday Funday. More relaxing in the pool. The kids were running around somewhere...

I love this picture! There probably won't be many pictures of my grandmother with the great grandkids so this one is so sweet! Also, kids are funny!

Munday Funday

Happy Labor Day! I hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing day, free of labor. I had a great weekend, but it was busy- filled with lots of driving (which I hate) so I am excited to just have a day at home!

The busyness started on Friday when there were 23 patients on our census. That, by itself, is enough to make the day busy, but then I signed off on 2 consults and discharged 11 people. So. Much. Paperwork! And I felt like I was running around in circles most of the day! Add to that the fact that I had 2 students with me and I was exhausted at the end of the day!

Saturday morning, I woke up and drove the 2 hours to my aunt's house to see my grandmother and aunt who were in town from Seattle. It was a relaxing day of hanging out by the pool and not doing much of anything!

But I had to leave early to drive back to Memphis and babysit my nieces while my sister and brother-in-law went to a wedding. They didn't get home until late and I was tired.

I wasn't planning on going back to my aunt's house on Sunday. That was the whole reason that I drove down on Saturday, but I started to feel guilty and didn't want to be left out of all the fun. So Sunday morning, I got up early and drove back to Adamsville for the day. My sister and her family came, my uncle grilled out, and we all hung out by the pool again.

It was a great weekend and, even though it was a lot of driving, I'm glad I made the trip!

And today... I'm doing nothing!

Sunday Smiles

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When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.

-Isaiah 43:2

Another Update on the Year

Every time it's time to do an update on my New Year's Resolutions, I realize how much I am slacking on my goals. Majorly failing! Here are my original goals. And here are the updates from May and July.

Financial
1. Put $x in savings.
No. Just no. I have been horrible about this one. I've been focusing on paying off my loans. But according to Dave Ramsey, I am supposed to pay off all my debt before I start saving anyway so I'm going to pretend like this is okay...
2. Pay off $y of loans.
Still the bane of my existence! And I still feel as if I'm never going to get them paid off. I think that I'm at about 55% of my goal, which means I am 12% behind. Which also means that I won't meet my goal. But I'm trying to be optimistic and think about how much I have actually paid off this year. Slow and steady...
3. $z monthly cash budget.
I have been pretty bad about keeping up with my budget, so it's actually hard to say, but I think that it's going alright.

Mental/Professional
1. Read 20 books.
I've read 17. I've been slacking a little lately. And I am semi-reading 3 right now. I'm not great at reading multiple books at one time though so I may need to slow down and pick one to read before moving on the others. If you have any good book suggestions though, send them my way!
2. Attend a conference. Done!
3. Choose a research topic.
I'm pretty sure that I have one chosen, but I haven't actually done anything about it. I haven't started any research or anything. Just picked a topic. I'll share it later...

Emotional/Personal
1. Travel.
I went to New Orleans for the conference. And had a long weekend in Gulf Shores. Still trying to plan a trip to Costa Rica, and maybe to Seattle now that my brother is moving there!
2. Be a better friend.
I think that I am getting better at this. Seeing this just reminds me that I need to try to make some plans to meet up with people. Or at least send a text to check on them. But I still stand by what I said last time: doing things is hard! #introvertproblems
3. Be selfish.
Again okay, but not great. I am still working on me and I think that my coping skills are actually improving! 

Physical
1. Work out 4 times a week.
Honestly, I haven't been keeping up with this as well as I should have, but I have been trying to get to the gym as much as I can. And I've been getting in some runs too. Work has been busier than usual (especially with students) so I have been getting out later than I would like and haven't always made it to the gym when I wanted. But last week, I woke up early and went before work and we have had surprisingly mild weather for August in Memphis so I have been able to get some runs in after work without dying of a heat stroke.
2. Run 300 miles.
Well, I'm 3 miles behind schedule, which is totally do-able! And training hasn't even started yet!
3. Train for and run a half marathon.
Official St. Jude training is about to start. It's time to get serious!

Spiritual1. Create a prayer board. Done!
2. Memorize scripture.
This could always use some work, but it's actually going pretty well.
3. Find a church home. Done!

So there you have it: my resolution update.
How are your New Year's Resolutions going?

Happy Day, Memphis!

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September 1! It's 901 day, y'all! A day all about celebrating Memphis! So find something fun to do and go out and enjoy the city!

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I'll be celebrating all week if anyone wants to join me!