On Eagle's Wings

Today is going to be a tough day. A really tough day.

Today, I will be going to the funeral of a 28 year old young woman. One of my high school friends.

Like I said, a really tough day.

Ashley Thompson was one of those people that you feel blessed to call a friend. She always lit up the room, no matter what the circumstance. She even managed to do that throughout her 4 year battle with cancer.

I last saw Ashley in August, and although she was facing a lot of setbacks at the time, she was still so interested in how I was doing. What a beautiful trait and something that every one of us could learn from.

I could go on and on about how great of a person she was, all the memories from elementary school, middle school, and high school, but there just isn't time. {and I'm not sure if you'd want to read such a long post.} I think her funeral today {aka "Celebration of Life"} will be an amazing testament to what kind of a woman she was. I look forward to spending time will all my high school friends who have come from all over to share in this day. I know there will be lots of tears, but there will be so many stories and laughter too. And that's exactly how Ashley would want it.

A bunch of us high school friends celebrating Ashley's birthday a few years ago {Ashley's in the middle wearing pink}

New Years Eve 2008 {Ashley's in pink}

NYE 2008

NYE 2008

A goofy pose at one of our girl's nights {Ashley's in the middle with a hat}

At my other friend Ashly's wedding, NYE 2010 {Ashley's on the right}

NYE 2010

NYE 2010

~~~~~

And he will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of his hand.

~~~~~

Ashley, I am a better person for having known you. You will be dearly missed.

{to read Ashley's obituary, please click here.}

A Little Update...

Hey y'all, long time, no blog.

I'm back from DC and Philly {well, I got back late Monday night}, and I've been playing catch up since then. Unfortunately, the blog doesn't fly to the top of the priority list.

I've got a ton of pics from my trip, but those will have to wait for another day. My mom and I had a great time, and I am so glad that I went to the conference. It was amazing to be surrounded by people that are passionate about the same thing I am {and I may be a little jealous of what they get to do everyday!}

Anyways, I wanted to update you on something that I blogged about a couple weeks ago. Remember these? Well, I got my Indiana print, and it now has a home on the wall in our kitchen. Here's how it looks....

I'm pretty happy with it...the blue is brighter than the wall color, but I think the white mat and black frame help buffer that a little bit. Overall, I think a good solution to my previously empty wall.

More on my trip when I get a chance!

{almost} Wordless Wednesday

Couldn't resist snapping this pic of the beautiful sky one morning last week

Sorry I've been a bit of a slacker for the past week...I've been crazy busy! My mom and I leave this evening for DC and Philly, so they'll be a little more of a hiatus!


Have a good rest of the week and weekend! See ya next week!

The Power of the Snooze Button

I used to be one of those people that would NEVER hit the snooze button. Never. I didn't understand the people that said they would hit snooze and stay in bed an extra half hour. Growing up in middle school and high school, I had a TV in my bedroom {I know, something that I tell my patients NOT to do}, and it had an alarm on it, so that was my alarm clock. Well, after awhile, it got to be that I would wake up to the click of the TV turning on. Not the voices once the news or whatever came on, the click.

Well, unfortunately, I've become one of those people that I didn't understand when I was younger. Over the past year, I've become a slave to the snooze, almost always having to plan a 30min buffer with my morning routine to account for "tapping" the snooze {I use my iPhone as my alarm} at least 2 or 3 times. I hate doing it, but I just can't get away from it.

Enter this morning. When I went to bed last night, I told myself that I would get up early and work out before work. {Keep in mind that I tell myself that almost every night, and it definitely doesn't happen every morning.} Well, I'm happy to report that I did it! My phone started chiming away at 5 am, and instead of tapping snooze, I got out of bed! I know this may seem trivial to you all, but it was a small victory for me. Not to mention the fact that I went and ran a couple miles, got ready, and now I'm eating breakfast and drinking my coffee  {and blogging!} before heading out to work in 15 minutes. Talk about a great start to the day!

I hope your day has started off just as well! Tomorrow's Friday already!

P.S. Steve Jobs, As an owner of a MacBook, iPhone, iPod, and iPad {and soon to buy another iPhone}, you have changed my daily life and made a huge impact on the world. RIP.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Today, I am loving the fact that in one little week, I'll be headed to Washington DC for the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science Annual Meeting!

Photo by Destination DC

After many years of dance {from age 4 all the way through college} and all my years of medical school and residency, I am so excited to be around people that love both dance and sports medicine as much as I do. I've dreamed about something like this since high school, where in my college essay, I talked about wanting to be a physician for a professional dance company. Well, I think this is pretty much a dream come true!!! I can't wait to just soak everything up and hopefully come back and share some of this new-found knowledge with my fellow residents and faculty. I'm also super excited that part of the conference includes an open dress rehearsal for the Washington Ballet Company and a performance of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center. Talk about awesome!

My momma is going with me to keep me company {not to mention the fact that she really wanted to go to the dance performances!}. We're also making a little vacay out of it and taking the train to Philly on Saturday once the conference is over to visit my brother for a couple days. I've only been to Philly once, and I'm excited to go again to do a little more exploring and to hang out with my brother for a few days.

I'll definitely post a recap once I get back! Stay tuned!

Like it. Want it. Gotta have it.

What am I talking about here?

Let me fill you in....

Meet the iPhone 4S. Just announced today. I got my first iPhone back in March of 2009, and I've loved it. I use it all the time. However, over the last 6 months or so, it has gotten so annoyingly s..l..o..w... With my mounting frustration, I've been checking various Apple blogs recently to see when this baby would be released. Well, I finally have my answer. I'll be ordering my white, 32gb iPhone 4s on Friday morning {probably in the wee hours}, then it'll ship starting on October 14. And hopefully I won't have to wait a couple weeks to get it like I did when I got my iPad 2.

Anyways, it's got a ton of new features. Probably what I am most excited about is the new 8 megapixel camera. Seriously?!? That's more megapixels than my point-and-shoot Canon! I can't wait to have the ability to take good pictures {and HD video} wherever I am. You all will definitely benefit from that, so you won't have to suffer anymore from my awful {current} iPhone pictures.

Apple has also finally gotten a checklist/todo list/reminder app. Behind the camera, this is the other thing I am super excited about. My grocery lists, home to-do lists, checklists for work and chief resident stuff...all on my phone. Can't wait.

There's a million more features that are probably going to rock my socks off {iCloud and Siri, just to name a few}, but I won't bore you with anything else right now. Probably in a few weeks, though.

Hope you had a great Tuesday! Tomorrow's hump day already!

Is it the weekend yet?

Just kidding.

Well, kind of.

I don't think I stopped for more than an hour this weekend. Crazy busy. I need another weekend just to recover from this past weekend!

I froze my a$$ off Friday night at the Zionsville football game. My car said 55 degrees when I walked into the stadium at 7pm, but with the winds, I think it was more like 30-some degrees. Brrrrr.... Unfortunately, we lost, but I did happen to score a nice winter jacket with "St. Vincent Sports Medicine" on it. {you can see it in the pics below} I love free stuff!!!

Saturday morning, I spent some time with one of our Sports Medicine faculty in the acute injury walk-in clinic at the Sports Performance Center. It's really just a chance to get more sports med experience, and I got to see several ankle sprains, a tibial stress fracture, and several concussions, among other things.

From there, I went to the St. Vincent Walk of Hope event for Breast Cancer awareness to provide medical coverage. I really didn't do much since it was a walking event, but it was good to be out there and volunteer. However, it was freezing again, thanks to the heavy winds throughout most of the day. I headed home for an hour or so, relaxed a bit, ate some dinner, and waited for TJ to get home from work at 4.

Around 5, TJ and I headed up to West Lafayette for the Purdue/Notre Dame game. TJ grew up as a huge Notre Dame fan, but went to Purdue for college. A lot of people were asking who he was going to cheer for...His response, well, one of my teams are going to win! Notre Dame ended up winning big time, and it was fun to walk around campus and be at a college football game. Once again, it was pretty chilly {do you sense a theme, here?}, but this time, I was prepared and bundled up so it wasn't too bad.

The Bell Tower

TJ walking his old stomping grounds

Pretty fall tree

TJ in front of the fountain

Me in front of the fountain...see the new jacket??

Drew Brees! TJ had a few business classes with him back in the day! Go Saints!!!

Beautiful night!!

Me & TJ

Sunday was filled with sleeping in {till 11!!}, a quick trip to the grocery store, a cookout with my co-workers, church, and football. All in all, a great weekend, just exhausting!!!