Sunshine State Wife

We are in for a treat! Cute Sarah Jane is guest posting for us today! She is sharing her experience as a wife to a grad student living in the Sunshine state. Man can I just say I am super jealous...I'm bundled up in my big coat today while she enjoys the warmth!

Hey there. 

I am SarahJane and I blog over at Just the Two of Us.

I am super excited to guest post today for Wives, M.D.

See my sweet Husband of mine hauled me across the country just three LONG months ago. 

We are both Utahns. Born and raised.

We miss it like crazy and I will always call it home. It is just where my heart is. 

Now we are apart of the sunshine state. 

Florida. 

{Yes, we are voting for Romney. #swingstate}

Dave brought me to Florida with him so he could go to graduate school. 

He is currently doing a combine masters/ph.d program in Hispanic Linguistics. 

To be honest. 

Moving away is so much harder than I imagined it would be. 

Or maybe graduate school is so much harder than I thought it would be?

Before we left Utah, we never really talked about moving. 

Because we were both nervous. excited. scared. emotional. you name it. 

I really never let my mind think about it because I wanted to enjoy where we were. 

Now that we are here. It is really hard at times. 

I miss my family like crazy. 

However, 

I am grateful for Dave. He works so hard and really makes his best effort to spend time with me. 

I see all the other wives of Dental students, Law students, 

MED students (like these fabulous woman)

and I am in awe of them. 

There husbands are gone 12+ hours a day!

Dave is gone a LOT. and yes he gets stressed and school is really hard. 

But, I am grateful for how much I get to see him. 

And thank heavens it is just 4 years, right? 

{just FOUR years?}

Med student wives are truly angels in my book. 

Anyways, on to the fun stuff. 

Florida has been so much fun. 

Right now we have an average daily temp up in the mid-high 70s. 

It is no longer insanely humid (only about 45% on average)

and the major rain season is over. 

It really is paradise!

With all of Dave's hard work, we get to play a lot too...

 We have become GATORS! 

We are loving the football games here, the stadium seats 95,000!

That is way more than the cougars!

 We are only an hour away from both the Golf Coast and the East Coast beaches.

{Dave is still really white though.. hahah don't tell him I said that ;)}

We are huge rock climbers. 

So we miss our mountains like crazy. 

BUT. there is a decent climbing gym, thank goodness. 

(This was at the Halloween climbing competition...

We were both Where's Waldo)

-----------------

Well there you have it. 

Being the wife of a graduate student is hard at times.

BUT. We definitely get to have a lot of fun too!

We hope you will stop by and read about our adventures some time :)

Isn't she just a doll! Make sure to check out her blog here. We love having guest posts...if you are interested let me know! We'd love to make new friends. 

Set Rules and Don't Give Up

Danny and I met Beau and Brittany at our church. We quickly bonded over the stress of pending med school applications and swapping information about DO programs. For a while there is looked like we might end up at the same school (which was soooo exciting) but then Danny broke his leg and Beau took an offer from Reno. We went on double dates where the boys talked sports and the wives talked about me school, stress and our over-intensity during the process. Friends like Beau and Brit and friends for life. We miss them like crazy! Anyway, here is Brittany's advice for the med school journey:

When Michelle invited me to write a guest post I really didn’t know what I would write about. But I will say that when she asked, a whirlwind of emotions was swirling all around me. Three words can wrap it up. Life. Is. Hard. But I’ve learned that in order to get through it, you need to set some RULES. Here are three that came to mind. (Note: there are multiple RULES. My advice: start a list and add as you go.)

Rule number one: MAKE TIME. Immediately after moving I started a new job in a critical care unit as an RN. This unit is has wide assortment of critical cardiac patients, cancer patients, and numerous other diagnoses. It is stressful, fast pace environment and very time consuming. I work night shifts and so at times I will go 3-4 days without seeing Beau. His days (away from home) are 7am-10pm, my days are 6pm-8/9am. In the beginning it was difficult, but we have found it is important to set aside time for each other. Yep, create time for each other. You might feel like you literally have to stop the clock and create it out of thin air, but do it non-the-less. It might only be once a week. Whatever your scenario is; create it, and enjoy it. 

Rule number two: A healthy break can make you or break you. Make sure to set parameters, time limits, anything to keep you on the right road because it is easy to get distracted. Beau has enlightened me that you physically cannot go 12+ hrs straight studying AND be productive. So he stays focused better when he sets aside time to exercise. His school has a gym and he takes 30 minutes a day to run, weight lift, and/or stretch. He typically does this when he feels he is getting tired and not absorbing the material. A quick workout session can rejuvenate your mind and body to give you an energy spurt for the afternoon or evening of studying ahead. This can also go the other way, if you are at home missing your hubby a good jog/walk can boost your mood and metabolism;).  

Rule number three: Keep your priorities straight. Don’t let the demands of Medical School cloud the vision of what really matters. As long as you remember why you started this journey, and what’s most important, you will do just fine. Put you trust in God and his plan for you. It’s easy to judge and feel judged when you are in a constant competition for high scores and good grades, so try to keep an optimistic perspective in mind. You’ve made it this far, you can keep moving forward. For us it’s putting our Heavenly Father and family first. We know if we do this everything else will fall into place.

So, chin up! All will work out! If you would like a nice song that kind of correlates Listen to this: 

Biggest Cheerleader

I met Ashley and Mike at EFY. They also happened to meet each other at EFY. Go, EFY! Mike is a dear friend of mine that makes everyone in a room laugh until their guts hurt and Ashley is his beautiful, crafty and amazing wife. I thought Ashley would be a perfect person to guest post because I have asked her and Mike tons of questions about med school and they always make me feel more calm. Mike is in his 4th year at Midwestern, a DO school in Arizona. Here they are:

Acceptance (he did it!). White Coat Ceremony (this is really happening!). Boards (what did we get ourselves into?). Rotations (oh ya, this is why he’s doing this). Residency interviews (my husband’s months away from being a legit doctor).

There are so many exciting, stressful, and rewarding times in medical school. When Michelle asked me to guest post about anything I wanted, I literally lied in bed at night wondering which topic would be most beneficial for those who are just starting (or already started) the journey. I feel very strongly about certain aspects such as how to keep busy as a med-student wife, how to work with your hubby to find your perfect balance (between his studying, your activities, your marriage, and for us, church was included in this list), and making friends (both you and the mr.). But one specific topic kept coming to my mind when I thought about this post. It was advice my aunt gave me when we first got married.

Do your absolute best to make sure your husband knows you believe in him. Be the best cheerleader in the world.

While the thoughts and prestige of medical school can be so enticing and fun, I won’t sugarcoat it. Medical school is hard. Your husband is surrounded by some of the top students from many schools. To keep a high rank, be involved at school, possibly juggle some research; the pressure can sometimes be overwhelming. There were times my hubby would come home so discouraged. I would think of anything and everything I could possibly say then I’d remember the wise words of my aunt.

When my husband felt and knew the honesty of my words, his day would turn around. I believe in my husband. I know he’s a smart man. He’s capable of accomplishing seemingly impossible tasks. He’s strong minded and has the determination to accomplish his life long dream of helping people in the medical field. And he has a desire to provide a good future for me and our future children. He can do it. I know he can do it. Sometimes he just needed to be reminded that I know he can do it.

Cheer him on. Whether it’s telling him or finding a way to show him, do whatever it takes to make sure he knows how much you believe in him. He will find so much strength and motivation in knowing the love of his life is also his biggest cheerleader.

*If you have any questions at all (about 1st-4th years, boards, rotations, how to keep busy, finding the perfect balance) I’d be more than happy to chat! Go ahead and shoot me an email: ashleychristensen9 {at} gmail.com ---

it’s always so nice to talk to someone who is going through or has recently gone through the same thing as you. Because let’s face it, people back home just don’t quite understand ;)