New Blogger needs help!

As a new blogger (of one week), I definitely don't know the in's and out's of blogging yet.  I've been viewing many very well done blogs over the past week.  One thing I would love to try, but for the life of me can't figure out, is how to make a 3 column blog.  Help needed!!!!  Thanks all :-)

Research Presentations---Success!

I'm a clinical research coordinator.  People NEVER seem to know what it is that I actually do.  It doesn't matter how many times I explain it to my family and friends, no one ever gets it...hehe  Basically, I work for a certain department in an academic medical center.  I'm in charge of all research projects going on in the department.  I do whatever the head doctor on the study needs me to do:  write the study protocol, submit to the review board to get the study approved, consent patients, collect blood samples, execute laboratory protocols, analyze data.  Its a fun job and it keeps me on my toes.  There is always something different going on....definitely not a 9-5 job.

About a month ago, my boss called me in his office.  He told me that over the next 3 months, I would be on a trial period for a new position.  If I perform well, at the end of three months, I will be upgraded (promoted) to a new position.  I'm sooooooo excited about this!  Not only am I ready for more responsibility, but the money will definitely come in handy with the upcoming wedding ;-)

One of the main duties with this new job is managing the research project for our department's residents (Residents are doctors fresh out of medical school.  They need to do some more specialized training before they can go on to practice on their own).  Each resident much complete a research project: a final written report and an oral presentation....all before graduating. 

Today was the oral presentation day.  There was a TON of work that went into organizing this.  Who would have thought it would be so tough to get these highly motivated, organized professionals to get their projects in to me on time?  I had to hunt  people down to get their projects.  I emailed.  I paged.  And then I went looking for them.

In the end, all but two presented.  One called in sick this morning (he must have been really sick because he was here until 5:45pm last night with me going over his presentation).  The other one is interesting.  I couldn't track him down.  Turns out he is on vacation!  I've been sending information out to these residents for months about when this stuff was going to happen, and not one time did this resident tell me he wasn't going to be here.  Ugh.

All in all, things went REALLY well today.  I've had soooo many compliments from staff and faculty alike.  YAY!  Hopefully this bodes well for my upgrade :-)

Wedding invitation!

So, with JS gone for the year, I have been working on wedding planning....almost obsessively.  It definitely keeps my mind in a good spot, and makes the time pass pretty quickly.  My Mom jokes that I have so much done already that we could potentially get married this May if we had to!  hehe


I've been working a lot on designing our invitations.  Our colors are deep purple and green.  I'm planning on putting the invite in a pocket fold from http://www.cardsandpockets.com/.  My sister got a lot of her invitation stuff there, and they were really nice!  So, this is what I have so far.  I like this one, but I'm kind of leaning toward a white background and switching some of the elements around a little bit (obviously I took out some of the details...don't want some random creepers showing up at the wedding ;-) ).  The folder I'm thinking about is the sparkling Merlot color and then having some accents in meadow metallic.  I like it :-)

A great way to start the morning!

I had to come into work early today....around 6am to enroll a patient into a research study.  I was busy up until about 7:30am, when I was able to come back to my office and relax and drink my coffee until my patient was out of the OR.  At 7:35 my phone rang....and it was one of those weird numbers.  I knew right away who it was...JS!  YAY!  It is unbelievable how happy it makes me when I hear his voice.  I know that I'll be smiling more than usual today and that I'll have a bounce in my step! :-)

Is it possible to love "Army Wives" more than I already do?

I've been watching "Army Wives" from the very beginning.  I don't think I've ever looked forward to a show as much as I do with this one.  The only problem was that I didn't really know anyone (personally) that watched the show.  So every Monday morning I would come to work and just want to talk about the awesome episode from the night before, but no one was interested.  Now this has changed...

The weekend before the 4th season's premiere, I took the DVDs of the 3rd season home to my parent's house.  My Mom kind of half watched some of the episodes with me.  But before I knew it, she was hooked.  Now, she wants to watch the show with me.  With JS deployed, I am overjoyed to make the trip home just to watch a TV show.  Its great to have an "Army Wives" buddy....and its great bonding time for my Mom and me :-)

Great weekend at Dear Old State

Yesterday I attended the spring football scrimmage at my college.  My parents threw a tailgate for all of my friends....it was an amazing time!  My sister and a bunch of our friends played in the Alumni Band at the game, and afterward, we all went out to eat downtown and then on to a jazz club.  It was so much fun....hanging out with great people at my most favorite spot!  And then to top it all off, on the drive home, JS called me!  Because of the missions he is on, he is unable to call as much as he (and I) would like....but that makes every phone call very, very special.  Just hearing his voice takes me to a calm and happy place....and I'm reminded each time we talk how truly lucky I am to have him in my life :-)

Me (left) and my awesome sister (right)

My Ring is BACK

On Easter Sunday, I was out in the sun just staring at my engagement ring.  I thought to myself, "boy, this is just the most beautiful ring I've ever seen!"  Then as I looked closer, I noticed something was wrong.  One of the tiny diamonds was missing!  I started freaking out.  I felt terrible....I had only had the ring for a little over a month and I already lost a diamond.  Thankfully, I called the jewelry store, and they said they would fix it no problem.  After three weeks of not having it on my finger (I bought a fake one...didn't wanna go around with a naked finger anymore ;-) ), I finally have it back......and I can't stop staring at it :-)

(this was taken when the little diamond fell out....I'll have to get a new pic now that all the diamonds are back in place)

Good times with an old friend

Last night I met up with an old friend from high school.  We were really good friends during our senior year and were cheerleaders together.  During college, we lost touch, but reunited on facebook.  Last night we finally met up for dinner.  We had such a blast and the hours flew by!  She is getting married soon, too, so we had TONS to talk about.  It was almost like no time had passed since we had last hung out.  I'm very excited to be starting a new friendship with an old friend!

So many fun things!

In my ONE day of blogging, I've already found so many neat things!  All of the pretty decorations on my page come from Shabby Blogs.  Through that site, I also found FotoFlexer, which is an online photo editing tool.  I've been playing around with it, and it is really cool!!!!  Photoshop is just too advanced for my needs, but FotoFlexer is right up my alley....and, you can edit right from the internet....you don't have to download anything onto your computer.  Definitely something to check out!

First time!

Hello all! This is my first shot at blogging! I am also a newbie to the military life, which is what most of my posting will be about. I became engaged to the love of my life, JS, about two months ago. He is an Army pilot..and is currently deployed in Afghanistan. Things have been interesting being newly engaged and trying to plan a wedding with my amazing fiance being more than 10,000 miles away and having limited contact. But, we will make it through this because that's what we have to do!