We Live Next to Guitar Hero and Squeaky Seats

 

Ever since the medstud got accepted into medical school we have been day-dreaming about the day we finally get to move out of our apartment! We never noticed how loud our place was until our little one came along. The day we brought her home the medstud went and offered both neighbors a set of ear plugs so that if our baby girl's crying began to be a little much, our neighbors could deaden the noise. Both declined which was fine. But that very night as our sweet angel was falling to sleep she was startled awake by guitar hero next door and by squeaky seats on the other side of us.

The medstud went and asked our neighbor if he could turn the music playing down. But how were we to ask our other neighbors if they could stop moving their furniture all over their wooden floors? It was like they were playing musical chairs at 11pm!! Three months later I was gully enough to gift the neighbor with furniture pads. She thanked me for the gesture and said that she just had bought some. I couldn't help to think, "THEN PUT THEM ON!"

Our daughter has finally gotten use to some of the noise but every now and then will still awaken if the noise is abrupt enough. With that said, we are so happy to be moving. We aren't particularly crazy with the physical part of packing and moving so we've hired movers. We are gonna start the packing process 2 weeks before our move that way we are super organized and as the movers move our stuff they can put each box in its designated room.

We went to visit our new place yesterday, very nice area and within a mile we have lots of our favorite stores to shop at. It's in Mar Vista just south of Santa Monica at the UCLA Family Housing. We've never lived in West side before so it'll be a new experience exploring different parts of the city and becoming familiar with our new surroundings. I mean its only 21 miles from our current residence but its a whole different world out there. We will be back in the valley at least once a week cause' our church is in Newhall so that will be nice.

Funny how leaving your comfort zone can make you feel anxious and a bit nervous. I guess I may be feeling this way cause' Daniel will be in school throughout the day and I won't have my partner in crime to explore our new neighborhood. We are very fortunate we got the family housing; the waiting list has about 600 people and the housing department gives priority to the medical school students. Also, we will be living with people who are hopefully conscientiousness of noise. The building also has strict rules and fines if they are broken. Can you tell we like silence?

Well until later friends! And once again thank you for praying for us!

"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." James 5:16

A Little Bit of Sanity for any Wife

I was recently asked by a friend to help with any tips or suggestions for keeping the house afloat. I then began to think, "What do I do to keep the house functioning at its best?" I went through my daily activities in my mind and outlined what stood out to me. Now, there's no divine wisdom behind this list but this is what I do to keep sane and it works for us. It may work for you if you've yet to find an approach and need a way to go about keeping your house from becoming a tornado.

 List and Tip Sheet for keeping the House Organized and Tidy

1.      Make your bed as soon as you get out of it. It takes less than 5 minutes and it can make a world of difference

2.      Remove anything you brought in your room the night before (cups, water bottles, laptop, book) and put it away in its designated area

3.      Get ready right away in the morning; shower, change, brush your teeth. This helps with having the attitude that you are ready to start the day

4.      Laundry: If you are like us and don’t have loads and loads to wash, choose a day where you can make it your “laundry day” and get ALL the laundry done. If you have more than 4 loads this can be hard; so try doing 1 load of laundry a day; start a load before leaving the house.

5.      Plan dinner in the morning ( I am by no means a cook but I attempt to make dinner every night; left overs work too :) )

6.      Clean the kitchen up after every meal. Make a point to spend the extra ten minutes cleaning up the kitchen, instead of getting behind and letting things pile up.

7.      Clean up the living room before going to bed each a night. This can become a family chore. Take five or ten minutes to do a sweep through the living room and put everything back where it belongs. 

8.      Put it away now. The single, simplest thing I do to stay personally organized is to put whatever tool, item, clothing, bag, hairbrush etc., away immediately after using it. I always know where everything and anything is so I never waste time looking for something. Also, if I am not home the medstud can call to ask where something is and I can tell him exactly where it’s at 

9.      Pick your clothes out the night before

10.  Keep a notepad next to you to write anything down that you think you will remember only to forget minutes later or the next morning

11.  Near the Door: Keep items you must have with you when you leave near the door. Place keys, phones and chargers, sunglasses etc.  in a baskets or on a table near the door or on a mantel. When you come home put everything back in its designated area. "Contain and maintain." The habit of putting things in one place every time eliminates having to hunt things down, saving frustration and time

12.  Sort your mail as soon as you get it. Sort through your mail as soon as it comes. Have baskets or envelopes for mail organized by bills, catalogs, and miscellaneous items. Toss catalogs you know you won’t use or look at immediately, and throw away junk mail. (You may also want to call and ask to be removed from the mailing list.) 

13.  Keep your dishwasher unloaded: Take a few minutes each day to make sure you keep your dishwasher unloaded. That way, you can immediately load your dishes into the dishwasher after meals so the dishes won’t pile up in the sink.

14.  Have designated areas for everything. Have different bins or plastics containers to pile things in; mail, things to be shred, things do to, phone calls to make, papers to be filed away, bill etc. This is great to do because if you have people coming over you can quickly store those bins/containers in room or closet as oppose to cleaning off your dinning/coffee table

15.  In and Out of your car: Take anything out of your car that does not need to be in your car especially trash. Do this every time you get out of your car, scan your vehicle real quick and toss stuff

16.  Organize your day the night before

17.  Try doing things at the same time of each day; I mainly do this in the morning and at night

18.  Chore day: Pick a day where you can stay home and clean up the house. OR spend 15-20 minutes each day to clean up an area of the house; a bathroom, a bedroom, the front door area, the kitchen etc. I usually take a part of my day and get it all done in one day especially because I have all the cleaning supplies out. If I have the Windex out I go around the house and Windex anything that needs to be windexed. If I have the vacuum out I vacuum the whole house.

 Do I do all of these things all of the time? No. But I do have a way to go about getting them done so that helps tremendously.

We’ve Switched Over to the Dark Side

Goodbye USC. HELLO! UCLA. May 16^th was the day we were to make a final decision on which medical school to attend. We had dropped Loma Linda and Cornell and were left with a very hard choice to make; UCSF or USC. After going back and forth, creating a pros and cons list, praying, praying and more praying we chose USC. We thought we felt at peace with the decision until a couple of days later the medstud woke and thought it was bad dream (poor guy). We began to think “did we make the right choice?” Prior to decision day I had been praying and writing to the LORD when He put a thought in my head, "You aren’t at peace with either school nor have I given you any confirmation because you will not go to either school." I shared this thought with Daniel and he said, “Well maybe UCLA is gonna contact me last minute.”

Rewind 4 years ago when we were still praying about the career choice of medical school and what that would look like, the LORD totally put UCLA at the forefront of our mind and UCLA never left. The Lord had put several things on our path as well to make us believe that UCLA would be the school of choice. Fast-forward to decision making day and we totally doubted GOD. We began to think that all those signs were mere coincidences and that He decided just to give us two excellent schools to choose from where we could have the best of both worlds.

(I’m recollecting everything, so excuse my choppy, scattered brains writing).

UCLA had contacted the medstud for an interview with the last batch of potential students; we thought we would never hear from them. Then lo and behold UCLA contacts the medstud weeks after decision making day to let him know he has been accepted. WHAT!?!?! We were ecstatic! And the 1^st thing that came to our minds is the verse in 2 Peter 3:8-9

"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness..”

What does this mean? GOD certainly does not view time as humans do. HE stands above time. Time is purely relative with GOD. We have definitely learned patience through this process and have learned a lot about making difficult decisions.

So the medstud and I are very happy about the next 4 years.Today he wore one of the UCLA hats we found on the street 4 years ago and we have received Peace with the school of choice. UCLA and surrounding neighborhoods here we come! Hope they can handle some Jesus freaks :)

Im going to medical school (well kind of)…..

So the medstud has asked me to be his study buddy while in med school. Am I happy to do it? OF COURSE! Does this mean I’ll be good at it? Probably not. Have you seen the kinds of words they have to learn; just grab a Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine and you will soon see that there is nothing concise about those words.  I have enough trouble trying to read long numbers. With that said I need to come up with some fun learning techniques to help him memorize and learn all the fancy stuff that will be thrown his way. (Suggestions welcomed)

I’m also happy to be his study buddy because this means we’ll be able to spend some time with each other (this is us getting creative here).

I’ve also taken the liberty of creating a list of ways to hang with your MS or SO (Refer to previous post for abbreviations). You may think some of them are strange but hey when you’re pinching for time to see each other this may help;

1. Wake up with your MS/SO before they leave for their long day of school or work

2. Make breakfast for your MS/SO or enjoy a nice cup of coffee together

3. Sit in the bathroom as your MS/SO brushes their teeth or showers

4. Walk your MS/SO to their car

5. Help your MS/SO study

6. Create study area so your MS/SO comes home to study instead of staying at the library (though the library may be more beneficial at times)

7. Visit your MS/SO in between classes while they are at school. This is also great if you have kids and they want to see their parent in the middle of the day

8. And most importantly during any one of these times make sure you pray together!