Hellooooooo September!

I realize that it is not technically, September yet, but just go with me here. The way Ty's first year of residency works is you do 6 months of your specialty (surgery) and 6 months of off service specialties. In July, he was on internal medicine. In August, he was on internal medicine nights. The WHOLE month was nights and he worked his last night shift, last night, so to us it is now September. :) He did get two weekends off, but he spent the majority of that time awake when I was asleep and then asleep when I was awake. It was hard for his body to adjust in that short time period.

This has been a long month for both of us. I would rush home from work to make dinner and see Ty for 30-45 minutes. He worked 13-14 hour shifts and tried to sleep during the day. He was exhausted and our time together was not always quality. He worked 12 shifts in a row, before any time off. I am so impressed with the way he handles being exhausted. I think I would cry every day and unfortunately, make those around me miserable. He always makes time for me and I'm so grateful for that.

I have turned down hanging out with friends, so I can spend time with Ty. I think that most of them understand how important it is for my marriage. I hope that people don't get discouraged by my doing this, and then stop inviting me to things. Divorce rate in residency is extremely high and we are making our marriage a priority. This may mean that I have to rush home from things to spend just 20 minutes with Ty or I have to turn down fun opportunities, because he only gets one weekend off and I want to be there for it. In our situation, we have to make all of our time together count, because we may not get that time again for a long while. Sheesh, that sounds dramatic. But it's true!

I could write for a while on the amount of stress Ty is under or the things I'm doing or not doing, to survive residency. It is only month two of residency and we have a long way to go. I'm so thankful that he is in the same city as me and he is safe. I always think of the military families when I complain about this season of our lives. I know things could be much worse, but I also want to acknowledge the things we are struggling with in our life. I hope this post doesn't sound like a pity party. I just want to remember what this time of our life was like.
I'm also not writing all of this down for sympathy, although I will definitely take it. Just kidding! :)
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Nuts and I have been keeping each other entertained in the evenings. One night it was actually cool outside and I took a towel out to the backyard to read and enjoy the weather. I've been keeping Ty entertained at the hospital with pictures and texts.


I got an iPad at work and I'm so excited about it.
Nuts and I were playing around with the photobooth app.

If anyone has any good suggestions for a pdf viewer app that also let you annotate the pdf, please let me know!

sweets for my sweet

My title should really say sweets for me. I have the worst sweet tooth. Ty will eat them, but he can stop at one chocolate, cupcake, etc. I'm always wanting more.

chocolates from a little chocolate shop downtown

above: champagne chocolates and italian hazlenut
below: sea salted caramels and peanut butter chocolates


I was in the mood to bake something the other day, but it was too hot to use the oven. I remembered those yummy peanut butter chocolates pictured above and decided to make my own. I found several recipes online and combined them into this one.


I only had so much chocolate chips and powdered sugar on hand and I didn't want to make a million peanut butter cups, so I halved the recipe and then halved it again. So if you don't want to make a ton, then use this recipe. I think it made 12-15 cups. I made three large ones, because I ran out of mini liners.

ingredients:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar, do it to taste
1/2 tbsp butter
1 cup chocolate chips
PAM
mini cupcake liners

Empty the peanut butter into a bowl and stir in the powdered sugar. Mix in the softened butter and set aside. The powdered sugar and butter make the peanut butter incredibly smooth and tasty!

Melt the chocolate in the microwave with a small dollop of crisco. The crisco helps melt the chocolate smoothly. Arrange the cupcake liners in a mini muffin pan or on a baking sheet and spray them with PAM.

Spoon the melted chocolate into the cupcake liners and coat the bottom and sides of the liners the best you can. Set the extra chocolate aside. Place the tray into the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes. Pipe or spoon the peanut butter mixture into the cooled chocolate cups.

Spoon the remaining chocolate on top of the peanut butter and place the tray back in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to completely set. Then eat just one and place the rest back in the fridge, because you have amazing willpower.

cupcakes from a local cupcakery, kupcakz

The top right one is a peach cake with bourbon infused frosting. Yum, yum.

Now that I've developed a muffin top from all the sweets and Ty has somehow managed to lose weight, I've switched to these:

sooooo good.

babies

My weekend was full of celebrating with friends!
I went to the hospital this weekend to meet my friend, Megan's, twins. Twins! So exciting.
They are perfect!

Loving on sweet Knox!

A relative of Megan and Brent's was holding Sloane, so I didn't take a picture of her. She is just precious.

These invites have been sitting on my kitchen windowsill for a couple of weeks. They are so cute together and I don't want to throw them away. Does that make me a hoarder?!


One was for a baby shower and the other was for one of my nephew's first birthday. I wasn't able to go home for the birthday party, because I had an out of town work event Saturday morning. I can't wait see pictures from his party.

I designed the shower invite. Here is a better look at it (with made up info.)


I also made this bunting.


I thought this was the cutest shower present.

The girl who gave it to Natalie filled it with customized stationery, monogrammed burp cloths, and a monogrammed blanket. I love personalized presents.

Ty had to work this weekend, which means I saw him for a total of three hours the whole time. Not fun. I did get to spend Saturday night with my best friend, Chesley. Dinner and Target, not much better than that. :)

"quotes"

I'm slowly decorating my new office at work and a few key furniture pieces should arrive in a couple of weeks. I find that I work better when I'm surrounded by pretty things. Surely, I'm not the only one that feels that way. I saw the quote below somewhere (can't remember where) and loved it. I whipped up a picture and printed it to hang in my office.

It's currently pinned to my tack board below my hutch. I may buy a mat for it and hang it with the mat on the tack board or frame it and hang it somewhere. I was too impatient to wait until I bought a mat before I put it up in my office.


I made several, because I couldn't decide on a color.






If anyone is interested you can download a pdf of the picture and print it at Kinkos or at home for you own use. I wasted a lot of time figuring out how to embed the pdf in my post for you to download, but couldn't figure it out. Visit the numbered links below to view the pdf in google docs. Once in google docs, you can click on the item and then go to File, and download or print. The pictures are 5x7. If you choose to print, a box will pop up & you will need to change the page scaling to none.
1, 2, 3, 4


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easy addition

I am easily bored with workouts and can get into ruts, which seems contradictory. I get bored and stop pushing myself. Not good. I saw this on pinterest and decided to try it out last night. I'm not going to lie. I'm sore from those push ups. :)
I plan to combine this with running. It is so simple and I love that you can do it anywhere. I may even try it out in my office on my lunch hour.

Source: healthyisalwaysbetter.tumblr.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

**I didn't know for sure what a burpee was and substituted squats for them. Stephanie sent me this link to explain burpees. I was afraid that's what they were. Can I stick with squats?! :)


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