New York bound...again!

Sorry its been a while I posted, it's been a hectic busy couple of weeks.  The biggest new development is that my husband Mat accepted an emergency department pharmacy residency in Rochester, New York.

We are beyond thrilled and still pretty shocked he got his first pick.  It's a great program and he will learn a lot to make him an even better hospital pharmacist.

I'm excited to move to a new area and explore the Finger Lakes region, Canada, go to Niagra Falls, and honestly just be a in a place with a slower pace.  Long Island has been good to us, but we don't think we could live here long term.  Here's to new adventures in Rochester! 

Expect more posts within the next week!  

Feeling the Beginnings of Spring!

The snows beginning to melt, the suns out longer, the temperature is higher, and the potholes are out in force.  I'd say that spring is slowly beginning here on Long Island, New York.  I welcome it with open arms and am so ready to see green again, go for runs outside, wear short sleeve shirts, and just have that energy a new season brings.  I'm also looking forward to going to the city during this time, especially to Macy's for their spring floral show.  It will be so inspiring to see the creative designs of some of the top floral designers.  

I can't help not looking at beautiful floral designs online (especially wedding and event designs) and be inspired.  The details, shapes, color, and textures of them all get me geared up to design some of my own.  Here's a couple I've found and loved.  Welcome spring and all that you bring!

Love the soft pink and blush tones in the juliet roses, hydrangeas, dahlias, and  ranunculus in the above design.

My sister Samantha would love all the purples in this bouquet

This wedding centerpiece just screams spring to me with it's fun elements.

It's a Pharmacist Wives Life for Me!

My husband Matt is a pharmacist and a good one at that.  He's always excited to tell me about medicines, criticize the commercials we see on the t.v., talk about articles he read, projects he's working on, and let me know about medicine reactions I don't remember asking about.  He goes in early and stays late to make sure patients and their meds are kept care of and while at times it drives me crazy when he's late getting out of work I know he cant help it.  I hardly can keep up with the daily pharmacy stories, but think I'm doing better over these past years and know there's plenty more to come.

He studied at our Alma Mater The University of Kansas, Rock Chalk!!!  We love being from Kansas and hope to one day end up back there to plant our roots finally.  Right now though the task at hand is getting him as much training in the hospital setting as possible, specifically Emergency Department and the role of a pharmacist in it.  Matt has such a passion for working in this environment and hopes to one day bring this type of focus back to the Midwest where it's a bit lacking.  This is why we packed up our little Blue Ford Focus last summer and trekked it over to Long Island, New York so he could do a residency.  New York was never part of the plan but when Plan A doesn't work you find a Plan B, and that was exactly what happened.

We've transitioned to being New Yorkers quick I'd say.  We love our delis, beaches, diners, LIRR, and can yell with the best of them when we're driving!  We're over all this snow we have and the shitty roads though.  It's hard to be so far away from friends and family who we would see all the time and transition to pretty much relying on one another for daily support.  At the same time we've experienced a lot and have truly enjoyed the year.      

As mentioned before Matt is almost done with his residency and now is trying to get a second year position in another residency specifically in an Emergency Department setting. He had three interviews, did his best, ranked the in this crazy hard to understand national pharmacy lottery and now we wait.  We wait to find out if we move to Salt Lake City, Utah or stay in New York and move to either Brookyln (that's considered NYC people) or Rochester (up by Niagra Falls/ Canada border) or get none of these three options and end up driving back to the Midwest.  The next two weeks are going to be a killer waiting to find out!

It's a Pharmacist Wives Life for Me!

What the heck is a Camellia?!

Nerding out on flowers over here and had to share one of my recent adventures about learning about a new flower today.  On a random Saturday a couple of weeks ago my husband told me we were going somewhere he thought I'd like.   In all honesty my husband is not very secretive so I was immediately excited and curious as to what we were doing.

We drove West towards the upper North Shore and ended up in a forest.   Smack in the middle of this forest was an amazing arboretum called Planting Fields in Oyster Bay that's one of the longest standing estates on Long Island.  While it was freezing and too snow covered to walk around I could tell it would be a beautiful place to go in the summer time.  Since it was winter though we ended up in one of the greenhouses, and not just any greenhouse.  It was specifically for Camellias!

What the heck is a Camellia?!  I had no idea but quickly learned they are large flowering plants that are found in Eastern and Southern Asia.  There are also about 100-250 different types of species and this greenhouse had many of them.

The varieties are so unique and the flowers look so different.  Some looked like dahlias, carnations, tropical flowers, carnations, gardenias.  They come is all shades of reds and pinks, white, and many two toned ones.  Needless to say I was in heaven.  I love flowers and plants and learning new things about them.