Half written postings thrown into one!

Well I have started to write 4 different postings and never got around to finishing a single one…… so instead I’m going to combine them all here because some of them are so old now it just seems inappropriate to post them on their own.

     At the beginning of May I took a trip to the Boundary Waters in northern MN with my brothers, father, my uncle +Mark and a friend of my dad’s from WSU.  What an amazing trip!  It was so refreshing to fly out of Chicago and then within a matter of hours from landing I was in the middle of wilderness.  Although it was still chilly up there and some of the lakes still frozen it was a great time to go to the BW because there were no bugs!  Although we were only up there for a few days, it was adversely strange to fly back into Chicago after leaving such vast emptiness.  It’s funny how we often conceptualize camping as rugged, unclean, or maybe even barbaric.  But after coming back to Chicago, I started wondering if the modern populated city life was any different.

Anyway, the trip was SO much fun and I am already planning on going back next year.  There were many stories and highlights from the whole trip but I’ll share my potential favorite three.  One of them was taking a nap in my dad’s new Hennessy Hammock!  This thing is a hanging tent and one of the cooler things I’ve seen in a long time.  If you’re into camping, listen to me, never buy a tent again!  Those things suck!  The hammock on the other hand is #1!  I'll add a picture below.
Also, here is a video about it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqg4x443RmM&feature=kp
    Another highlight deals with fishing.  I’m not much of a fisherman, but to be honest, I was really hoping to turn that around on this trip.  So I bought a fishing license and did a good deal of fishing.  But if I wanted to catch a fish, +Thomas was like 300% more determined to!  He spent most of his time fishing.  Now +Josh on the other hand didn’t even buy a fishing license, the only one of us not to.  And one night he decided that he better at least cast a line from shore just to say he did while camping.  And after one mediocre cast he decided to do one more……….. and caught a darn fish……… Thomas’ and my expressions were palpably angered.  Classic!
   The last highlight was just plain silly.  One night we had asparagus for dinner and after we ate we were cleaning up and decided to throw the butts of the asparagus into the lake for the fishies.  But what it ended up turning into was a left-handed throwing contest between all the Dégalliers!  I thought is was super fun….. plus I won.

Here is an example of my dad's hammock tent!

     Another blog posting I began but regrettably never finished was celebrating +Hannah and my first year of marriage!!!!  YEEEAH!  We did it!  Only like 5 more to go before she leaves me for someone way less awesome. 

Our anniversary was on the 25^th of May and it was super fun!  We really had more of an anniversary weekend which was great!  We did so much!  We went out to luscious dinner provided from a wedding gift that we had stored away to use on such a night, we spent a day at the beach, we went shopping (“we” as in I was at least there), went on a water taxi ride, etc.  It was a really great weekend and I had so much fun just hanging out with Hannah.

To everyone who has asked or is wondering how the first year of marriage was here is an easy word for me to sum it up: HARD.  Now in case you take that the wrong way, it has also been SO incredible!  I love being married to Hannah and we have grown a ton together since tying the knot, but that honestly doesn’t make the whole thing one big walk in the park!  I know there have been a lot of external relational reasons to express strain on our marriage, such as times without a job, living in foreign territory, school, etc., but we have had things between us that have been strenuous as well.

I think the thing that has been the most difficult to adjust to is the constant decision making together.  What are WE going to have for dinner, what are WE going to do this weekend, how are WE going to spend money, what TV show are WE going to watch?  While dating these things obviously came about so we had practice in a way.  But now that we live together and we share everything, it seems at times like I hardly ever make decisions for just myself anymore.  It’s an interesting change of pace.  Lord knows, I can’t even imagine what it’s like having a kid!  Which is why I am formally deciding to never have any.  Not really…… maybe…..

But back to the point.  This last year in marriage has been fantastic.  It’ll be exciting to see what we’re able to do over this next year.  LUM YA HANNAH! 

     Oh!  Another sharing point is that while Hannah is currently gone from Chicago, leaving me to whither alone in grief and despair, she got her second rotation switched back to Chicago!  So I only have to be alone for one month instead of two!

But as for right now, I’m living in Chi-town all by my lonesome!  It’s really strange to be honest.  After I dropped Hannah off at her friend’s house to get a ride back to MN I went grocery shopping for myself.  It was really weird.  I didn’t have Hannah there to tell me I didn’t need something, or at least, I didn’t have her there to make me think for myself that I shouldn’t buy something to avoid her judgment!  And over the last few days it has been so odd to come home from work and just spend the night alone.  I never lived by myself before so this month is quite the new experience for me.  It hasn’t fully hit me yet that I won’t be seeing Hannah much at all this whole month.  It’s still too soon for me.  But give it this weekend when I don’t have work and I’m just hanging out the whole day alone, I’m sure the distance will take full effect.   

      Alright, well I believe that is enough for me to write right now!  Hopefully I'll have more to share soon, but until then, thanks for reading!

Newset Update from Chicago

     Hello again everyone!
     And once again I am writing well past due my expected time for blogging.  Maybe someday I'll get my act together and post on a more frequent basis.  But given my track record, the odds aren't looking so good.  But I'm here now so lets get started!  I'm sure the suspense has been killing you over the past few weeks.

     Where to begin?!  Lets start with my work.  Over the past few weeks I can happily report that I have been enjoying work.  I have finally begun my training for cornea procurements and vitreous humor draws.  So its been exciting times!
     I believe I have shadowed/assisted with 6 or 7 cornea procurements and watched 3 vitreous draws before I was actually able to do 2 myself!  Now, while to most of you this sounds unfathomably grotesque, I can understand your 'view' (because puns), but to the coterie of us out there who find this sort of aberrant kind of work fascinating, its been a truly 'eye opening' experience (because more puns)!  But I even have to admit that the Cook County Medical Examiner's morgue was pretty horrifying the first time I walked in.  Believe it or not, its much larger than Winona Health's morgue...... like 330 times as big.
     If you don't know any kind of eye anatomy, please allow me to briefly attempt to describe what I've been doing.  The eye, in a crude sense, is like an onion, consisting of several layers.  Without going into different cell layers, the outer most layers are the cornea and the conjunctiva.  I'm sure most of you know of the conjunctiva because I'm sure somewhere along the way you've gotten poo stuck in there and contracted "pink eye"!  Below the conjunctiva is the sclera, which is all the white you can see when looking in the mirror.  The cornea is the clear middle part of your eye that you are looking at in the mirror when looking at your pupil or iris.  It's like a clear dome that hovers over the pupil and iris and helps direct light to them.  The cornea is the part of the eye that can be transplanted to another person.  So we have to cut away the lining portion of the conjunctiva around the cornea, and then cut out the cornea itself with a peripheral lining of sclera to help avoid contact with the cornea directly, and also for some stability.  Its really incredible!
     As for a vitreous humour draw, the vitreous humour is a gelatinous substance that fills the whole middle of your eye.  It basically serves as the air you would pump into a basketball.  But the importance of the vitreous humour is no 'laughing matter' (ok, I hate me too)!  Its very important for postmortem analysis and toxicology.  So I get to suck it out!  Doesn't that sound awesome?!?!  I've only been able to do it twice on my own so far and I found it so be much more difficult than I initially thought it would be, but I'm really excited to do more of them.
     I also had the luxury today to help with a whole eye extraction!  We were dispatched to collect corneas but found that one of the eyes had an infiltrate.  So we called in and headquarters told us to take the eye for research purposes.  It was really cool running through all the anatomy while watching.  I was able to see things today I never got a chance to while taking anatomy!
     I'm really hoping that I'll be getting a lot more training on this kind of stuff very soon because I love it.  And I've pretty much caught this place up on paperwork so its nice to get out of the office!

 
     Hannah has just finished her Family Medicine rotation, which I believe she was somewhat thankful to wash her hands of, and has just begun her Emergency Room rotation at Mount Sinai Medical Center.  So now I can't wait to come home everyday and here about all the exciting stabbings and gun shot wounds she'll be healing!  I mean, don't get me wrong!  Stabbings and gun shot wounds are a terrible thing...... but they do happen.... especially in Chicago..... so I may as well get to enjoy hearing about them!  Mostly because I'm a terrible human being.
     Other interesting news regarding this final stretch of Hannah's PA schooling happens to stem from her last two rotations before graduation.  I'm not sure if anyone so far has caught onto this overwhelming theme in Hannah and my life, but once again and without fail, there has been a wrench thrown in our cogwheels!  Hannah's last two rotations are electives.  She had to make a list of particular rotations that her school allowed her to sign up for, and then she had to be matched into two of those programs.  Now her second overall choice rotation was located up in the twin cities, and her and I both agreed it would be a good rotation and that I could stand living here for 4 weeks without her.  And she got the rotation!  Which is super awesome!  But what is not quite as awesome is that she got placed for her second rotation ALSO in the twin cities!  Of course!  So now what are we going to do you might ask?  Well, we are unsure as of yet!  Classic, we know!  We have a couple of options.
 We could just accept the fact we are going to be separated for 2 months and just put up with it, that's a definite option.  I have also started applying to jobs in the cities, so another option might end up being we're moving out of Chicago a few months earlier than initially expected.  Darn....  So if anyone knows of any jobs that would be pertinent for me in the cities.....
Our other option is that Hannah gets her second rotation replaced and is back here with me for the month leading up to graduation.  This option relies heavily on her school, so we have to wait and see if they can help us out or not.


     I just had the awesome privilege to fly up to the cities this past weekend to see my incredible friend +Dave Schneider off to Denmark!  It was such a great time seeing so many great friends!  I already miss everyone.  Unfortunately Hannah couldn't join me on the trip back because she had her end of rotation exam.  I just want to quickly thank again +Ali Schnell and +Luke O'Neil for letting me invade your homes and take up precious amounts of your time!


     I'm also excited for a trip I'm getting ready for in two weeks up to the boundary waters with +Josh Dégallier, +Thomas Degallier, +Mark Degallier, my dad and Dr. Hiddinga!  I just hope the ice is totally gone by the time we get there..... or else canoeing could be exceedingly difficult.  I'm really looking forward to this trip for some good family time and to get to spend an extended weekend in the wilderness!  I truly do miss being able to walk out my back door and be able to go hiking for hours.  I know this might surprise you, but Chicago doesn't allow me that privilege.  I'll have to write another post saying how the trip goes in a few weeks!


     Well I believe thats most of everything to report currently......  I guess if I'm missing anything then its my own fault and I just have to accept it.  But I will certainly be posting again relatively soon after our trip up north!  Until next time, I bid you adieu!

Job & Chicago Updates

     So I just realized I've been slacking once again in my posting/notifying you all about how the new job is going.  I know I've told many of you about the eye bank briefly, so even if I've talked to you about it a little hopefully this will give you a better idea.

     Essentially you could take the picture I painted in my last posting about what I'd be doing at the eye bank and just burn it.  I haven't been doing anything that I thought I'd be doing!  Pretty much since day one I've been, what I like to consider, and glorified secretarial detective!  So I've been doing paperwork......... A LOT of paperwork!  How exactly is the best way to articulate what I do?  I'm sorry if this all comes off leaving you with no clue, but it's sort of hard to describe accurately.

     Well here it goes!  Picture every donor has a case file.  This case file has it's own unique number.  There are all kinds of different things that need to be approved and tested and investigated in each donor chart.  And everything that not only has to be done with the donated tissues, but also their whole medical history has to be documented in these charts.  So far, thats where I've stepped in for the eye bank.  There is an overwhelming amount of paperwork that has yet to find a home in it's corresponding chart.  So I take paperwork and put it in charts.  I also take charts that are needing final approval and make sure all the paperwork that is supposed to be there, is in fact, in the chart.  This requires me to look up information detailing each chart on Midwest eye bank's national online database.  I check shipping data for flags, where the tissues went, did we get paperwork from those locations, did the tissues get approved, etc.  I've also been given assignments where I've had to go through already filed charts to recheck if the required paperwork is all there.

     So again, I've done a lot of paperwork!  I'm currently working on an assignment that is the most fun....... I've literally been given 96 pages worth of case numbers, or, all the cases that we have at the eye bank, and I'm going through the file cabinets and verifying that they are all actually there.  This is very time consuming and tedious work.

     Again, I'm sorry if I've done a terrible job of attempting to describe what I've been up to, but there isn't a whole lot to tell!  But I must say, even though I haven't been up to what I thought I would be so far, I can't say I'm entirely unhappy.  Yes is all the paperwork terribly mundane?  Sure it is.  But I really feel like I'm helping the eye bank out a lot!  There is a lot of paperwork that I've done because there is no one else who has had the time to do all of this!  And as boring and lame as it sounds to be doing, it is actually super important that it gets done.  So does the work kinda suck?  Yeah, sure it does!  But it is vital that it IS done, so I'm surprisingly happy to do it for them.  Plus, and I really don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'm shockingly good at it.  I'm efficient and organized.  I've been able to take all the charts and paperwork and organize it all very well so that everyone knows what-is-what and where it all is.  People have been coming directly to me to ask questions about their charting and what to do with it.  So again, as lame as the work sounds, I must also sound lame because I'm kinda enjoying it.

     I must also say, I won't be doing this the whole time I'm at the eye bank.  I have already been doing a little bit of cell counting, reorganizing stored corneas and scleras, and I'm eventually going to be training on how to go out and do eye procurements!  I'm very excited about that last one!  I'll have to let you know more about that when I actually start getting around to that though, because as of right now, I only know that they want to train me in on that job.

Wow, I've actually written a solid amount about doing paperwork.  You must all be falling asleep reading this!  How about some other updates?!  Hannah and I went downtown for St. Patrick's Day weekend to see the river all green and weird looking.  We saw brother +Josh Ditthardt and finally met his wonderful new bride-to-be Laura!  Congrats again you two!
We were able to drive +Paul warneke back to Winona not long ago and were able to stay in town for the weekend.  That was amazing.  Always so refeshing to get out of Chicago and get back home!  Oh, also while we were home we got to go shoot guns!  So I'll add a picture of Hannah shooting just for fun!
After church today we drove over to one of the conservatories here in Chicago...... there were a bunch of plants in it.
Hmmm..... what are some other updates?  I, regrettably, just shaved off my best beard ever.  SO I guess thats news.
OH!  +Hannah only has 5 months left of PA school!!! BOOM!!!!!!
Yeah...... we're not too exciting.  Sorry!

Here is another stack of files from some random day

Here are some of the filing cabinets at work I dig through

Here is a view from the break room (aka my office)

This was my beard..... I already miss it

We visited one of the conservatories in Chicago

Finally...... a job..... deuxième partie!

     Well friends, I have been waiting for some time to write this next post.  And man, I am so happy to finally share!

     It is with surprising regret to announce that my time at the Red Hen will be coming to a close at the end of this week.  I have come to enjoy this job SO much more than I ever thought I would, and I can honestly now say that I'm going to miss working at the Red Hen, at least a little.  Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to be moving on to a new position at a new job, but I'm really going to miss the people I work with and who have really become my friends.  The free coffee, pastries, and bread are also going to be sorely missed....... because I have really taken advantage of those benefits!  But I'm going to miss my Red Hen friends so much more.  I believe I can walk away from my time at the Red Hen with a lot of valuable experience and new learned life lessons.  This barista job was given to me in a time that I could not have needed it more, and for that I will be forever grateful!

     And now after that little tid-bit, I'm sure many of you are in ardent anticipation to hear where I will be moving onto!  Starting on the 24th of this month, I will be starting my new role of being a laboratory technician at the Illinois Eye Bank!

     God has certainly been testing me with the road leading up to this position, and it is certainly a story worth telling.  Especially for my personal blog.......

     As many of you know, and I'm sure the rest of you have speculated, receiving this barista position at the Red Hen was nothing short of a God send, but I wasn't satisfied with stoping there for a job.  So I haven't stopped the endless process of seeking out and applying to other jobs around the Chicagoland area.  And so a couple of months ago this position at the eye bank popped up while searching.  While home in Winona over Christmas I had the elation of finding out I was being offered an interview!  Finally, after the innumerable fruitless applications I have completed, someone was actually willing to give me a chance!  And so I had a one-on-one interview with the manager of laboratory services at the eye bank and was invited back a week later to have a second interview that was set up to be a group interview with a few of the other laboratory technicians.  After both of the interviews were all done I felt I had done a great job and was extremely hopeful of receiving the position.

     But to my dismay, I was not chosen.....

   I was, to say the least, devastated!  I was really starting to like the Red Hen, but the thrill of the chase for this new exciting job really got my hopes up and really made me realize how ready I was to be moving on to the sort of job I was hoping to get when I first moved down to Chicago.  So to hear that I wasn't selected really hit me hard.

     I really tried to trick myself into feeling that it was alright that I wasn't selected.  I at least attempted to put on a happy face up front, but deep down, it really sucked to not be selected!

     Roughly two weeks after I had heard I didn't get the job at the eye bank I was listening to a podcast and walking to work when I realized I was not even listening to the podcast but instead just fuming over my misfortunes yet again.  And I just remember somewhere in that walk I said a quick little prayer that was something along the lines of 'ok fine God!  Clearly if you wanted me to be done at the Red Hen I would have gotten this other job, so evidently I'm not done here yet.  So I guess I'll be fine with it too for the time being.  But I really wish I knew what the heck you have in store for me!'  And man does God work in mysterious ways......

     During my break at work that same day I happened to pick up my phone and saw that I had a missed call...... from the manager at the eye bank......
     Clearly I was baffled to see that they would be calling me so recently after they told me I wasn't hired.  I remember that night Hannah came to pick me up after work and we gave one of my coworkers a ride home, and as soon as we dropper her off I told Hannah about this mysterious phone call.  I remember the look on Hannah's face and her saying that she had a feeling that I wasn't done with them yet!  So when we got home I gave them a call and was greeted by the manager who I had interviewed with.

     She told me that first of all she was very sorry for not hiring me.  As you can imagine, this took me quite by surprise because how does one who has been bitterly brooding for two weeks respond to this apology?!  "Ummm..... well yeah you should be!", or "well thanks for the call but I don't forgive you", or "I was hoping for an apology", or "....... well yeah you should be!"  But anyway, I honestly can't remember how I responded, but I can only assume from what followed that I responded respectively.
     She then continued that I interviewed extremely well and that everyone liked me but that they were in the end unable to hire me because I had aspirations of getting accepted into dental school which would already start this fall and they didn't want to hire someone in this position for such a short amount of time when they knew other applicants were willing to stay longer.  But she did have a new proposal for me.  One of their current lab techs is leaving on maternity leave and since everyone wanted to hire me before anyway, they were willing to create a paid internship for me to fill in while their other employee was absent!

     I was speechless!  I didn't know what to say!........... but I managed to squeak out "yes"!  And so here I am!  I have yet to have the exact hard details of what I'll be doing, but I do know it will be along the lines of the job I had applied for.  Some of those tasks included calling optometrists and other physicians to review donor patient charts, reviewing donor medical history, analyzing eye tissue cell counts, dissecting the corneas and other harvestable eye tissues, packaging and sending out tissues, and I just found out recently that I will at times be assisting in eye extractions!  I am extremely excited to begin and will absolutely be sharing my experiences!

     I feel exceeding blessed for this opportunity!  It is going to feel incredible to be back in an occupation working in the realms of medicine again.  This internship is going to offer me invaluable experience in not only reviewing patient history's but also reviewing anatomy, medical terminology, pathology, microbiology, etc.  This job is also going to help support Hannah and me finically a little bit more for the time being.  I also feel blessed that this job is in fact an internship because if not I would not have the chance to be assisting with eye extractions.  I also feel that my hours are going to be much more flexible this way.  And to be truthful, being in an internship works out the absolute best for the eye bank and for me looking down the road.  All in all, this seems at the moment to be a win-win scenario, and has clearly shown itself to be a case in which God knows better than I do and will make it work.

     Well if you've actually made it this far, thank you for reading and I will be sure to post again after I begin at the eye bank!

     Cheers!

Brewing the beer

      Holy cow...... well evidentially I haven't written a blog posting since the end of September!  It honestly doesn't seem like it's been that long.  Like I assumed at the start of this blog, I live a humdrum life and apparently can't find enough to write about more frequently than 4 months apart at a time....
Such disappointment....
     Well, this is something I certainly aim to improve upon in the future!  So sorry if I out of the blue throw out a barrage of postings.

     Anyway, I decided I really wanted to start brewing my own alcohols, beginning with beer!  Thanks to the generosity and love from my parents, my Christmas present was a beginners brewing kit!
     Oh the joy and jubilee this brought me!  It may have not been a Red Ryder BB gun with a compass and sundial in the stock, but the sheer bliss of that brewing kit brought me comparable excitation to Ralphie's that crisp Christmas morn' (For reference, please see "A Christmas Story" and make yourself happy).

     I must say first of all, I first wanted to begin brewing on my own after seeing a 5 gallon pickle bucket at work being thrown out.  I looked at it and instantly thought what a perfect acquisition to begin my very own fermenting felicities!  I could simply collect these barrels before they get thrown out and be able to brew to my pleasure's delight!  The possibilities appeared endless at the flicker of my imagination's content.  Little to my knowledge, it so happens that removing any sort of lingering pickle smell is a major pain in the ol' keister!  I am only now, after several months, feeling that it is usable for brewing..... and I've only gotten one of these barrels to that point.......
     Many of you may be rightly wondering, why not just ditch the dumb thing and buy a proper barrel?  Well the answer to that is simple!  I'm stubborn!  And lacking any funds to do so!  So free is better!  Here is a picture of the stupid thing!

      So as we move on, I think you can grasp a clearer picture as to my elation of receiving a proper brewing kit.

     It was packed with it all!  The fermenter, the sanitizer, the hopped malt extract, the bottles and caps, and tissues to wipe away any amateur's tears of joy!  I was ready to start.  For the first time since leaving Minnesota, I couldn't wait to get back to our apartment!

     This particular kit came with a Classic American Light malt extract to make the beer.  So in other words, a pretty wimpy beer (ABV a laughable 3.7%) but probably a good one to start with.  And at least its patriotic!  If you really care to take a look here she be: http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/1008/nm/Classic_American_Light_Standard_Refill1 

     Here are pictures I took for documentation of my first beer brewing experience.

This is the fermentor 

This is me preparing the HME before starting the wort

   

    Everything went extremely well except for the carbonation process.  I believe I put the beer in the refrigerator just a couple days before I was supposed to.  They gave me a general time frame in the instructions for when it would be acceptable to do so, which I waited for, but I should have been wiser and noticed that the bottles weren't quite pressurized enough.  And I should have been wiser by only putting one bottle in the fridge instead of 5!

     That being said, I did leave out 3 bottles and I discovered that those lucky few survived my accidental murder of carbonation.  So I am at least able to properly enjoy a small portion of my batch.  

     Well needless to say, I cannot wait to begin my next batch (once that pickle smell is vanquished)!  This next time around I'll be able to produce more (5 gallons instead of 2) and I'll be able to bottle and cap the beer for real.  The whole plastic bottle and screw of cap just seemed like I was cheating!

     Again, hopefully I'll be posting again here very soon.  In fact I'm sure of it, so sorry.....

     Also, if you are interested, be on the look out for +Josh Dégallier's upcoming video blog!  I'm sure it'll be a bunch of junk, but I'm looking forward to it anyway! 

I sure wish all my beer turned out this well!

Finally..... a job

Hello there everyone!

     Well I've been waiting a long time to write this post, and now, finally, the wait has ended.  I finally have a job!
     I have been hired at Red Hen Bread as a barista.  While this is not exactly the occupation I was hoping for when moving down to Oak Park in June, I am beyond grateful for this job!  We needed this source of revenue like crazy!
     After yesterday, my first day, I was excited, nervous, petrified, and lost with all the new experiences!  It's going to take a lot learning for me to get to true proficiency at this new job.  The training experience is difficult!  But I think this is going to be fun.

     Just a forewarning, I got a little carried away..... so this is a long posting!

     So the real reason I wanted to write this post isn't so much to let everyone know that I finally have a job, but really more of what I have been trying to learn through this whole phase of unemployment!  I say this because I believe God has been toying with my flimsy heart strings over these past 3 months and the only way I can justify having gone through this is to take the 3 months and use it as a time for self reflection.

     I honestly believe I needed this time without a job to get ready for marriage.  I don't know if I have fully discussed this with +Hannah, but I think I needed to not have a job for a reason.  I obviously knew I wanted to get married, and I obviously knew I wanted to marry Hannah!  But I have learned a lot about marriage by not having a job that I think would have made our first 3 months of marriage a lot harder if I had a job right away.  I know to SO many of you reading this that what I'm about to say is a no brainer, but marriage takes A LOT of self sacrifice!  Now to back myself up before everyone judges me, I knew this going into this commitment!!!  But knowing it and actually experiencing it is very different!  I'm sure when Hannah reads this she is going to laugh and think I'm exaggerating, but I've worked pretty hard while not employed to do things for her and set my wants aside.  I've been the one cleaning the apartment, for the most part, she obviously does things too!  I've done a lot of laundry.  I've done a lot of cooking, even if its basic.  I can't list everything I've done, but I can describe that I've felt many times thankful for being a full time husband!  It's tough work fellas!  It's not always easy to look forward to seeing your wife all day and then when you finally do you have to sit and listen to her cry and complain about PA school for an hour.  But its easier when you haven't been doing anything yourself all day.  I believe I needed this experience to get ready to be the same comforter even after coming home from work myself.  Even after last night, I came home from my first long day of getting trained in and feeling like an idiot all day, but I still had to do the dishes and take out the garbage and carry something out to the car, because you know what, thats fair!  Hannah worked all day too and made the food!  But anyway, I needed to learn this.  And perhaps the best way for me to learn how to live with Hannah was for me to only have Hannah to live with for these last 3 months.  Maybe now I'm ready for a job.  Being married to Hannah is incredible, but maybe in order for me to be an incredible husband back to her meant I had to solely be a husband and not do anything else.  And if thats the case, I'm thankful that I've been able to do that.

     Another lesson I think I can take from all of this is money management.  I have to be honest, I've never had to worry about money.  Even after moving out of my parents house, my job in the ER, even only part time (0.5), was enough for me to live off of easily and still save money.  Now, on the other hand, I almost literally have no money.  All my life's savings has been depleted getting married and living for 3 months without a job.  And even now that I finally have a job, we're still going to struggle with the little money I'm making.  Hannah is much better at managing money than I am, so I'm thankful for her, and I'm still learning.  But this is all a life lesson!  And even if it sucks, big time, maybe its for the best in the long run!  At least I'm choosing to view it that way.

     Lastly, I think I am now with this new job to learn a new lesson, one that is going to really be painful for me: humility.  I love the medical field!  It's incredible!  If you don't, I don't understand you, and thats ok.  But working in the ER for me was an awesome experience!  I got to work with incredible people and learn SO much.  But I'm not sure it was good for my ego.  I know I was only a nurses assistant, but I took great pride in working in an ER.  Not to mention in the same ER as my dad once worked in, in the same hospital my grandpa worked in.  After working in the ER for 5 years and graduating from college, I felt like I was "lowering" myself when apply to Gap or a grocery store.  So now that I finally have a job again, I need to be thankful for it, really thankful!  A lot of people graduating from college are in the same boat I am!  It's hard to describe, but I think I need to learn humility through this barista job.  I'm not learning how to put in a chest tube anymore, but I am trying to learn how to make a mean espresso, and thats ok!

     I believe I have learned a lot while without a job, even if I am unable to articulate it well enough for you as a reader to understand.  I have to thank +Karina Biggers (Swanson) for sending me a link about a month ago to give me a reminder in life, especially on a day when I was really depressed.  It was, to summarize, a podcast talking about God's wisdom.  And to really summarize, what to remember was that God's wisdom entails the best possible results by the best possible means.  Now, it has sucked not to have a job, or any money, or not have any close friends near by, or any family.  But maybe thats all for the best possible outcome......  rereading over what I have already written in this post, I think I've had a lot to learn lately, and would I have learned it as well or at all if my life had gone the way I wanted it too?  I think this goes for my future aspirations too.  I really thought I wanted to go to medical school and get my M.D., but it took me bombing the MCAT twice to take a step back and see that maybe medical school is awesome, but I want to be a dentist.  Life lessons are hard, and I think I need to go through sucky situations because I'm all the more stubborn!  God really has to slap me in the face to teach me.  I have to be eaten by the giant fish before I go to Nineveh!  Maybe I have to be thrown into Château d'If before being rewarded.  I believe God will give us situations in our lives that we cannot handle.  But He has a plan and I guess we just have to deal with that, because evidentially it doesn't exactly line up with ours!

     Now, aside from the biblical standpoint, perseverance is key.  Our economy sucks big time, but you have to keep trying.  Yes I previously worked in an ER for 5 years.  Yes I graduated from college with  degree in Cellular/Molecular Biology.  Yes I minored in Philosophy.  Yes I've done a years worth of undergraduate glucocorticoid research on mice.  And yes, I'm now a barista.  I really have to thank +Dave Schneider for encouraging me not too long ago.  You really kept my head up.

     And as for all my other friends, which the list would be huge to name off, I thank you all for your encouragement!  And for anyone who is reading this who has been praying for me to get a job I thank you.

     Please post your comments or questions below!  I always enjoy hearing your feedback.

Apartment Tour

Hey everyone!
   Sorry that it has been so long since my last post, but as you can imagine, I have nothing exciting happening in my life!
   But I decided to do something for you and make a tiny little tour of +Hannah and my apartment.  It's not a good video so don't get excited!  But it does show you the apartment..... so you may as well watch it anyway.
   I hope this works by the way......