Last Month of Medical School

This week I started into my last rotation of medical school – the preparing for internship course. This is just a 2 week lecture series – daily lectures from 8:30 to noon on various topics that the school feels will be most helpful to us in preparing for the intern year. I am amazed by how short my attention span has become for listening to lectures and wonder how I survived the first two years of lectures. :) The things they have taught so far seems pertinent and a good refresher, and it has been especially nice to see all my classmates that I haven’t seen for a few months or years.

Monday we went to the domes, since it is free for Milwaukee residents on Monday mornings. This is a set of 3 large dome-shaped greenhouses, each with a different theme inside them. One had a garden theme, one had a southwest desert theme, and one had a tropical theme. It all smelled really good and was quite pretty. We especially liked the tropical dome and so had lunch on some benches in there.

That night Steph and I were invited to dinner at an Italian restaurant with my dermatology advisor, Dr. Valerie Lyon, and her spouse, and another student that has worked with Dr. Lyon, Christine Palmer and her husband. I tried anchovies on pizza and conch (like the conch shell) in a salad for the first time. It was so nice of Dr. Lyon and her husband to treat us out.

We have started selling our big furniture on Craigslist.com and have had some success this week – we sold the bunk bed, a couch, a dresser, a bookshelf, and a small cabinet. If we can fit all of our stuff into one pod for long term storage in Rochester rather than 2, that will save us about $1000. We are going to put the “furniture money” aside and save it for when we get to Rochester to apply towards new furniture. We have also been able to get some more packing done this week and only have a little left to do after graduation. The apartment is looking quite sparse recently.

Tuesday night we met with Kendra McMullin, a resident wife in our ward who has talked with us before about finances and some suggestions to prepare for the future. She came this time to give us some advice of things she has learned since they started residency – things that we should and shouldn’t try to do once we are living on an income – I think she had some really good advice. She also gave us a book to read, called The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, and so far it is really good. He stresses coming up with a method to pay yourself first in order to have enough saved to enjoy retirement. I was also shown a new website this week, poormd.blogspot.com that a recent graduate from my school has put together on different financial topics and he and his colleagues advice – from Roth IRAs to renting vs. buying to what to do once you start earning an income. Steph and I also sat down this week and started to put together an Excel spreadsheet showing what our monthly expenses will be next year and what things we want to start saving for. I guess we are just excited to finally have a paycheck and to start saving for the goals that we want to accomplish in our life.

Wednesday we went to the playgroup at the park. The weather was almost perfect and the boys had so much fun with their friends on the playground and in the sand. Camden is now old enough to run around with the older boys and do most of what they do, so it is fun to watch all of them playing together. We packed lunches so we could eat there at the park.

Kolby and Eli continue to improve in their swimming skills. Eli was able to swim back and forth across half the pool with only a flotation assistive device that looks like a weight barbell – his teacher just walked in front of him to make sure he was doing ok. He is also almost just tall enough to stand in the water by himself, so he likes jumping off the side and then trying to walk from me back to the wall – it is really funny to watch since he is not quite tall enough. I swam with the boys in the water after they were done and we had lots of fun.

Kolby and Eli have been working on staying dry all the time for potty training. We decided to start a new chart, and if they went 7 days straight with no accidents, then they could get some “big boy” underwear – boxer briefs – from the store. They have been so excited to work on it, and Eli actually was the first one to get to 7 days, so we went to the store and let him pick out some new underwear. He was so excited. We also had a 2 for 1 at Noodles, so we packed dinner for the boys and Steph and I were able to enjoy a nice dinner for under $8. What a deal.

We have had some fun with friends this weekend as well. Friday night we had the Kearls and the Hedgecocks over for games and dessert. They have both watched our kids for us a number of times and so we set up to watch both their kids for them last night so they could both go on a date. Then, the Wells called and came over to do an ice cream bar and games, as well as helping to watch the kids. We had 9 children last night and they all did reasonably well together. We were even able to get most of them to sleep and able to enjoy playing some games. Steph and I borrowed an old Disney movie from the Kearls called The Happiest Millionaire that we finished watching this weekend and that was really funny.


Well, it is a nice sunny Sunday morning and the kids are getting a little rowdy, so I probably should end to go and help Steph get them all ready for church.