nashville

Woah.

The days are moving fast lately.
Been a ridiculously stressful and busy week.
Didn't plan for it to be that way, but it sneaks up on you.

Nashville was phenomenal!
What a great city.
We rolled into town on Thursday evening (after adding 1.5 hours of wading through construction to our 8.5 hour drive) and met up with Frank at his favorite BBQ spot, which happens to be located right next to his favorite craft brewery.
We ate, relaxed, caught up on wedding news, and listened to live country music in the sweltering heat.
(The gross 90-degree weather reminded us why we left the South.)

We spent Friday sight-seeing in Nashville:
biscuits for breakfast
Country Music Hall of Fame
a couple record stores
Hattie B's hot (spicy) chicken for lunch
amazing Indian food for supper
(we're really about the food, if you couldn't tell)

Most of Saturday was spent at the hotel.
I had a lot of homework to do.
Ben lounged, exercised, slept, watched World Cup, etc.

And that evening we went to Frank and Jen's fabulous wedding!
The whole evening was really lovely, and so worth the trip to see some of our favorite folks get married.
The sun wasn't out, so we didn't roast. :)
So grateful.
It was also a treat to see some old Tallahassee/FSU friends.

We got home on Sunday evening and it's been a whirlwind ever since. 

Research class started on Monday. 9a - 1p. 

I studied SO HARD for my psychopathology midterm (diagnosing mental illness), which I took last night and did quite well on. 

(OHMYGOODNESS I WAS STRESSED OUT!)

I also helped with summer group at EYM on Tuesday and Thursday since one of their group leaders couldn't come in this week. 

I babysat on Tuesday night.

Didn't even go into the hospital for the first time this week until TODAY!

Had a 1/1 session that went really well. 

I'm looking forward to hopefully having more of those. 

Open Studio is tomorrow afternoon/evening, and then a cancer survivorship event on Saturday. 

SUNDAY IS MY BIG, LONG DAY OF REST!

You can tell my thoughts are all over the place, so I'm going to go rest up for what's to come!

soul collage

This seems like a good time to write.

Might as well since I didn't feel too motivated to do a lot of homework today.

Hopefully tomorrow is the day!

Friends from Minneapolis, Tim and Liz, are staying with us this weekend. 

They're in town for a wedding, but we got in some good hanging out as well. 

We made a big breakfast this morning, took them down to Bayview to a record store, and then to St. Francis Brewery for some Bloody Marys, beer samplers, and beer cheese soup. 

They're fun and entertaining folks.

This afternoon I gave Tim a haircut and french-braided Liz's hair for the wedding. 

I am full of skills that I just don't put to the test that often. 

Below are three "soul collages" that I made at the hospital's open studio on Friday. 

I have to be there 2-7 pm, so I had plenty of time to make them.

You basically have a smallish sheet of white cardstock, then you look through magazines and pick 3-5 images that you're attracted to (you're not supposed to think about it a whole lot, just pick), then arrange the pictures and glue. To finish it up you look at the imagery and write from the perspective "I am one who..." by filling in the rest of the sentence based off the images you chose. 

So I would think of the qualities and characteristics of flowers, fish, open sky, etc. and write about how I connect, represent or embody those characteristics. 

Kind of neat. 

Great for self-learning and introspection. 

mirror lake state park

We drove up to Mirror Lake State park this last weekend.

Had a great time exploring this gorgeous area just north of Madison.

We arrived on Friday night and set up camp.

I was pretty excited to break in our mostly new camping gear that we received as wedding gifts. 

I have a dream to go back for a partial week at the Winfield bluegrass festival in KS someday and really put it to good use.

Because we're both used to getting up early, we awoke at 6:20 am on Saturday morning, had breakfast, and went on a nice, long hike. 

We basically had the trail to ourself because nobody really gets up that early on a Saturday, except us.

We spent the remainder of that time reading psychopathology (just me), taking naps, drinking some beers, eating some food, and preparing for some rain to head our way.

Little did we know that a VERY large storm was headed our way.

Ben made the extremely good point that we may end up sitting in our tent, trying to stay dry for the remainder of the night. 

Then our stuff would still be wet and muddy in the morning. 

Since there was no really good reason to go through all of that....we packed up as it was starting to sprinkle, stopped at Culver's for ice cream, and headed back to Milwaukee. 

Sad we couldn't stretch it out until Sunday, but grateful we didn't get wet. 

It was actually kind of nice because we had extra time to lounge at home and prepare for the week ahead.

I was at the hospital 9:30 am - 6:00 pm today, so I'm pretty wiped out, but I had two really good 1/1 sessions, and a occupational therapy rehab group. 

Successful day.

I'm also currently at 377 internship hours!

By the end of next week I will have reached the halfway mark of 400!

This summer semester is already flying by...and we just got started. 

We'll be back at colloquium (our big art therapy camping trip) as knowledgable second-year students in 3 short months. 

Grad school scheduling blows my mind sometimes...especially when I finished two bachelors degrees in 5 years. 

This is lightening speed. 

And we're going to Nashville to see Jen and Frank get married...NEXT WEEK!

rhythmn

Oh no!

I'm definitely procrastinating right now. 

I went to the hospital this morning to do a short presentation on art therapy at staff orientation with a fellow intern of mine.

It felt a little chaotic because the other intern wasn't feeling well, so she texted that she would be in late. 

Then she came right before we were supposed to leave.

Another one of the interns happily volunteered to help me with it since she wasn't feeling well, but we didn't have a lot of time to go over things.

Regardless, we got through it and it went pretty well!

It will be even better next time.

Now I'm supposed to be readying psychopathology...and I just don't want to.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

Just wanted to share my painting above that I made for a good friend down in Chicago. 

Kind of a break through piece for me. 

It's started me down a new path of art making.

Also, routine is starting to establish itself again, and I always appreciate that.