Where are we now?

A million years ago when I started this blog I was a brand new stay at home mom to three itty bitty kids (newborn, 2 & 5) and my husband was a second year medical student. I was overwhelmed. (Ha, I guess not much has changed! I'm still overwhelmed:) And I felt like there was no way we were going to survive medical school and residency. Ok that's not true. I knew we would survive. It just felt like too much. Too long. Seven years of long, brutal hours for Joe at school & work and me at home with the kids. At that time one thing that I found the most encouraging was reading blogs of other medical students and resident wives. Women that had gone before me. That had conquered this medical training beast. I literally read entire blogs from start to finish like a book. They gave me a real life look into what medical school and residency looks like as a family. They gave me hope. And I didn't even know these ladies and their families! Since I had dabbled in blogging before (about garage sales...what was I thinking?!?!) I decided to give it a try once again. I figured if others' blogs had helped me maybe my blog could help someone just starting out on this long process. And what I discovered along the way was that I loved blogging. I loved processing my thoughts through writing. I loved documenting my kids as they grew and changed. I loved having a virtual history book of our family. I don't know if anyone reads this. I don't check the stats or keep track of followers. I just know that this has been incredibly therapeutic for me during these past six years. A great outlet. It has become something I LOVE doing. However lately it just hasn't happened. Life has been busy. Good busy. Mostly. But not blogging makes me crabby. Its my hobby. And I miss it when I don't make time for it. So I'm making the time. I'm back.

And I'm going to do a little life catch up. Because maybe, just maybe there is another medical student wife (or pre-med or resident) out there reading and following along and wondering how this crazy, long journey is ending for our family. Maybe they want to know how life looks at the end. So if you are out there. Just know it does end. Medical school ends. Residency ends.

And not surprising we all are a lot older. Our kids are now 3, 5, 7 and 10. The oldest three will have birthdays soon and be 6, 8 and 11. That brand new kindergartner I was writing about when I started this blog will be starting middle school next year. And my baby boy - who did not even exist when I started blogging - is a full blown opinionated toddler. He's a big boy in UNDERWEAR. I no longer have anyone in diapers! Which as a mom is crazy. I mean obviously I can do math. I knew when Joe started medical school that we would all be a 7 years older by the time Joe finished residency. But at that time I had a 1 & 4 year old. I had NO IDEA our family would look like this now. I was also in my late twenties then. Now I'm getting real close to 35. I couldn't comprehend mid-thirties then. But here I am.

Ok. Enough about ages and math. We are all older. Got it. So what does the end of residency look like for us? I wish I could say its all wonderful. Rainbows and unicorns. But that would be a lie. I always thought the end would be so exciting. Lots of celebrating and fun. We finally get to make the important decisions for our lives. Like where we want to live and where we will send our kids to school. Turns out those big decisions are STRESSFUL! And being DONE is bittersweet. These years were hard and long, but at the same time they were amazing too. Filled with great people and experiences. We had a cohort of people that were going through the same thing. We were all in it together. And all of that is about to end. And that feels a little scary. Our residency safety net is being pulled out from under us. And as it turns out Joe and I aren't very good at figuring out big life decisions together. What we are really good at is making the best of the life situation we are dealt. Wisconsin, Illinois and Texas were never our first choice of places to live but we moved to each because that is what the next step of our training required of us. And we made the best of each of those moves. We settled in and established a life that we loved at each of those places. Now we get to choose what comes next and that is hard!

So what have we done so far?

Joe interviewed for post-residency jobs last August. The kids and I traveled with him...because FREE vacation! But just figuring out WHERE to interview was hard. Joe loves Texas. And I love Joe. So we settled on Texas. But Texas is a big state. So the options still seemed vast and too many.

October is when he signed his first post-residency contract. We are headed to East Texas. Because...well 1) its in Texas and 2) it looks/feels like Minnesota with a very distinctive southern twang. He will start work mid-August.

Then we coasted for a few months and enjoyed our last winter here.

About a month ago we started getting serious about getting this house on the market. Resurfaced bathroom counters. Finally fixed the fence Harvey tore down. Fixed the hole in the kitchen ceiling (an entire year later).  Wallpapered the master bathroom. Painted almost all the trim. Finally painted the lower kitchen cupboards to match the upper cupboards. Stained all the doors. Scraped the windows (and cried big fat ugly tears while doing this tedious task). Planted flowers and cleaned up the landscaping.  Purged, packed and staged. Basically we did everything we always intended to do for this house. And it looks beautiful now. Just like I dreamed it would.

And now that I’ve typed up all of that it sounds like all good stuff. And it is. It’s good stuff. We’ve made it to the finish line (almost). But it’s been a tad stressful. Less celebrating and more “discussing” than I ever imagined. To be completely honest we don’t have it all figured out yet. We don’t know where we will live for the last couple months of residency if we close on this house before graduation. We also don’t know what we will do with all our stuff. And we are yet to choose exactly which town we want to move to. Then there’s the entire “should we rent or should we buy” debate that feels endless. Renting seems reasonable since we know next to nothing about Joe’s new job and the town. But at the same time our kids are getting older and we feel bad uprooting them so many times. So buying sounds like a great option. Except...we can’t get a loan until 60 days before Joe starts work...which is basically the same time as graduation. It’s complicated. I know it will work out and we will get to the celebrating part. But for now we are trudging through some big decisions. Decisions while not always fun I’m grateful we finally get to make. It feels like we finally get to choose what we want our life to look like. And that feels good.

Now back to that time/math thing. Here's a little visual of what seven years looks like...

These next pictures are from Joe's first day of medical school in 2011 in Illinois. A very sweet 4 year old Isaiah had packed his Batman backpack for his daddy's first day of school. Charlotte was just learning to walk. They were all sporting MSUM Dragon shirts because Joe was supposed to wear a college t-shirt for his first day of school.

Here are a few pictures from the beginning of residency. Unfortunately I didn't take a first day picture. But these were all taken within the first couple days of residency. Back when we had no idea what was coming. Residency seemed like a fun adventure then.