Warning

This blog might be obnoxiously wedding-y for a while. You can't say I didn't warn you.

We got our pictures from the engagement shot we did in mid-March Minneapolis. It was the first warm(-ish) day, so I braved the short sleeved dress. There was still snow on the ground, but, eh, I'm a Minnesotan. I can handle it. I really like our photographer. She's unpretentious and willing to do some creative, offbeat shots.

Today I finished drafting our menu cards, programs, and out of town guest brochures. They still need a few details that we haven't decided yet (i.e. song choices), but once we have that, I can print and cut and assemble! And getting those done will make me feel good for some reason. I like having tangible finished objects.

Also! I'm making jewelry for my bridesmaids, which is an awesome way to get tangible finished objects. Jewelry making is faster than stole knitting. By a long shot. I have 4/5 necklaces done and 0/5 pairs of earrings done. It takes me about 3.5 hours to do a necklace, because they're wire work and double stranded. Earrings will go much faster, so I'm definitely going to finish in time. I'll post pictures once I have a complete set.

Basically, things are coming along well, with one exception. I. Hate. The. Seating. Chart. We have enough people from very different groups that we really do need to have a seating chart. I just wish there was a magical computer program to do it for me. There are a lot of natural groups of 6 and 7 and 9. Our tables seat 8. Yeah. And there are 5 teenagers, who all want to sit together (I made the mistake of asking 2 of them yesterday). But which 3 adults get stuck sitting at the teenager table? I mean, 3/5 are pretty with-it, interesting 16 year olds, but still (the other 2 are 13...I'm not implying that they are not with-it or interesting). Grrrr....

I guess I've had a relatively stress-free planning process thus far. Now is the time to kick it into high gear. Or some other vaguely sports related metaphor.

One month

In one month, B and I are getting married. It actually feels real now. Tomorrow I go pick up my wedding band after getting it resized, and then, really, we have everything we need: each other, rings, license. We just have to get the officiant and ourselves to Minnesota, and we're good! Yeah, there's a lot of other stuff that "has" to get done, but if it didn't, we would still be married at the end of the day. And that's what matters. This is my mantra to keep myself sane.

Unfortunately, we also have to use this time to find a place to live in Providence. We've decided that life is too chaotic to buy right now. If we could invest more time in house hunting, it would probably be worth it. Since we only have a few days to actually look at places, we'd rather risk ending up in a lame apartment for one year than buying an undesirable condo.

Wanna see some wedding stuff? Sure, you do. Look! Flowers! We're DIYing because our date is, you know, the day before Mother's Day. It's better than February 13, but not by much. We're ordering through 2g Roses and Blooms By the Bunch, and we're saving a ton of money. These are our mock-ups, although the bouquet is kind of thrown together using waaay fewer stems than we will ultimately use. I ordered blue hydrangeas, white ranunculus, white and yellow roses, white stephanotis, blue and yellow irises, and white orchids. I think it will be really pretty. I mean, they're flowers: how ugly can they really be?
While we're talking about weddings, we might as well talk about...babies! My friend Jon and his wife Jamie are due...um...a few days ago, but she likes to bake them long, apparently. Baby is still firmly in utero, but I have a sweater for her when she comes out. It's Helena from Knitty in KnitPicks Swish. I really enjoyed working with this yarn. It's cheap, it's merino, it's superwash: what more can you want?

In other knitting...Mirabella (ravelry link) from Interweave made from Nashua Handknits. I'm turning it into a 3/4 sleeve pullover and maybe raising the neck, but the shaping and detail is from the pattern. Yeah, it's heavily modded. That's how I roll lately.



And this is my semi-secret project. So, just a picture for now. Also, I love Malabrigo laceweight.

PSA

So...um...confession. While sending out our invitations, we apparently grabbed a few RSVP envelopes from the un-stamped, un-self-addressed pile. Based on the SASEs leftover after mailing all the invitations out, I'm guessing there are about 9 people out there who got one of these non-SASE RSVPs (how's that for use of acronyms?) and I just wanted to say we're sorry. I've figured out who 3 of you are, but the other 6 haven't revealed themselves yet. Sorry! We swear we didn't mean to be cheap!

(And for those of you who are not close friends and family and find this post totally useless, return later for more interesting content.)

Brown

Starting in June, Brandon and I will be employees of Brown. (Sorry for the low quality crest image...it's what I could find quickly.) Specifically, I will be an OB/GYN resident physician at Brown Women & Infants Hospital, and he will be an Emergency Medicine resident physician at Rhode Island Hospital (right next door to each other). Suddenly, it's real. This is our future. We've started looking at housing options, and we might actually look into buying a condo. Providence is a lot more affordable than some of the other cities we were looking at, and there is that $8,000 tax credit thing this year. Then again, we might shun responsibility and keep throwing our money away on rent. We'll see. One thing is for sure: we're gonna eat a lot of shellfish next year. Oh, yeah.

No excuses

I'm a bad blogger. And this time, I have no excuses. Honestly, I'm not doing anything outside of wedding planning and counting down the next 11 hours and 20 minutes. What's that? Oh, yeah, Match Day is tomorrow. That brilliant concept created to make medical students across the country blow their aneurysms. But, seriously, at noon EST on March 19, we all tear open envelopes that contain the name of the residency program we will be attending for the next 3-7 years (4 for OB/GYN). Yeah. No pressure.

I've been drinking wine and knitting lace. That's called coping, people.

Firsts and lasts

Yesterday was kind of a big day for me, the beginning of a string of big days in the upcoming months.

It was my last day seeing patients as a medical student. Although I still have a reading elective left (Legal Issues in Reproductive Health - whoo!), I'm DONE with my clinicals. Done. Next time I care for a patient, I will be able to sign that order for Tylenol! Oh, the power... Seriously, though, I'm excited (and not just because of the obscene amount of sleeping in I have planned).

It was my first day getting cavities filled. I have grown up thinking I have perfect teeth. This is what the dentist tells me every time I visit them. I apparently had teeth that make dentists hyperventilate. Last cleaning (4 weeks ago) was no different. My X-rays were perfect. They couldn't see anything that looked bad. And then they got out this little light defraction/laser/ray gun device and held it to each tooth. In the end, they decided all of my sealants had to come off, and maybe there was a little bit of decay hiding under one of them. Ha. Or, as it turns out, I have five cavities that my friend Student Dentist Mark found for me yesterday. I went from no cavities to five. But, I am good with pain, and the cavities were shallow, so I avoided novacaine. I may have made some unhappy noises in the process, but I was not really feeling the whole slurred speech, drooling on myself thing. Anyway. My teeth are fixed now, but I'm still kind of pouty about the whole experience. I liked having perfect teeth.

It was also my first day realizing I really like violent movies. Not all violent movies, but I really enjoy a particular type of violence. We saw Watchmen last night. It was...okay. Really good at times, reeeallly slow at others. And I realize that the point of Doc Manhattan is that he's detached from humanity to some extent, but I spent a lot of the movie wanting to slap him across his serene face. I do love the whole Ozymandias, King of kings concept, so that worked for me. What really worked for me though, was the bloodshed. There's some pretty graphic, stomach turning stuff...and I liked it. Then, looking back, I realized that I also really liked the violence in Kill Bill and Eastern Promises. It's this specific kind of basic, almost arty, realistic violence that maybe appeals to the trauma surgeon in me? I'm not sure. Also, as a sidenote, there's a reasonably extensive sex scene in the movie that a couple of people walked out on. I'm sorry, you're fine with that extreme level of violence, but some consensual, adult sex is too much for you? That's messed up.

Also, two days ago was my first time wielding an embossing gun. Awesome! I'll try to get some pictures of my work when the light is better. (Also, for those of you wondering, the embossing was on invitation related paper goods, and the invitations are rapidly making it towards their goal of being mailed.)

Oh, hi

Right. Blog.

So, part of my absence is not my fault. The stuff I really want to talk about is residency and my rank list and things that I really could not talk about until everyone's rank lists were in (2/25/09). That's not to say I couldn't have been blathering about other things to fill the time. Right.

Somehow, Brandon and I managed to figure out our program ranks in a way that has left us both pretty pleased. We find out where we match on March 19 (18 days! count 'em down!), and we're trying to focus on other things until then. But we're already kinda planning a little bit of a life in our #1 city. Not that we're getting our hopes up. Really.

It took me a while to come to peace with our decisions. The program we're ranking #1 is, um, posh. Really posh. So posh that it makes me maybe a little uncomfortable. There's a tiny bit of me that feels like a sell-out. But. It is remarkable training, and residency is something you only get to do once. And there's an attending I'm working with right now who trained at this hospital (different field), who is, well, quite posh. Fabulous outfits, perfect makeup, pointy shoes. But she also runs the clinic at the women's homeless shelter downtown and the HIV outreach programs. She is someone who trained posh, works in a posh institution, and is using that power (and money) to do a lot of good. She's got it both ways. Seeing that last week helped me feel more comfortable with my decision.

On a totally unrelated note (ahem), I went to Chicago two weeks ago with a two women from my knitting group. We had a ridiculous amount of fun. I may have spent an obscene amount on yarn, buttons, and paper goods. Traveling with fellow knitters is risky. It's been a while since I've gone on a trip with just women. We had so much fun we decided to try to do another trip, this time at a state park, to continue the excellent female bonding. I'm voting for Hocking Hills, the state park of my childhood (they have a zip line now...oooo....).

And, in an effort to keep with the pictures: knitting!

Here's that beret, now on my head instead of on the coffee table. I still feel kind of silly wearing a beret, but I like it.
New FO! Delicato mitts from KnitSpot, knit on US1s with Knit Picks Gloss. I lost one of my Hurry Up Spring mitts, needed new mitts, knit these, and then found the mitt I'd lost. Right now, I love these best.
And this is a silly little box. It's just a bunch of odds and ends knit together and felted. It's one of those Felted Boxes from Mason-Dixon. Since it's a bunch of different yarns, it didn't exactly felt perfectly, but it holds things. Things like my keys and hospital ID. Functional.
I'm almost done with the sleeves on Brandon's cardigan. And then blocking and sewing and the collar and the zipper. And then you know I'll make him model for you.