Well hello!
It has been quite a while since I’ve written a blog post. So I thought I would start simple, and give you a life update! So much has changed in the past year and this will give you a little insight into why I haven’t been super involved in social media and posting in all this time!
We’ll take it back to April 2023, when I started my acute care job in Gainesville. I had been looking for a prn job but ended up with a full-time job in adult acute care. I really loved it! And the benefits didn’t hurt either. I got experience in med surg, neuro, ortho, cardiac, cardio-thoracic, ICU and more! I loved my coworkers and the environment of the hospital. Truly a great experience.
In July 2023, my boyfriend proposed to me! We went to Caspersen Beach in Venice, FL – the number 1 shark tooth searching spot in Florida! He proposed to me while we were looking for sharks teeth, and had planned out the rest of the day, including a photoshoot and driving to my parents’ house to celebrate with them.
Then started wedding planning! We planned for a May wedding, so just a little under a year to plan. I wanted to focus on making our wedding as environmentally friendly as possible and making our money stretch as much as possible.
A few things I did to minimize our environmental impact:
- Bought my dress off the rack/second hand
- Made biodegradable confetti by drying flowers I found/picked/bought over the months
- Thrifted fun floral/vintage plates for our dinnerware
- Rented silverware and glassware instead of using paper/plastic
- Bought compostable dessert plates
- Bought our florals wholesale and made the bouquets myself and with family, the centerpieces were just bud vases (don’t even ask me about the quotes I got from florists… let’s just say I saved literal thousands of dollars).
- Instead of hiring makeup artists/hair stylists, I did a makeup trial at Sephora and purchased the makeup myself – I needed new makeup anyway and I still use it as my daily makeup months later!
- I let my bridesmaids choose their dress style and colors from anywhere they wanted (saved them money and they chose dresses that they would keep and wear again!)
- The wedding planner I hired also coordinated the day of, provided all the tables, chairs, linens and decor, setup and broke down/cleaned up (best money I spent for the wedding)
- Hosted the wedding on family property (big money saver!)
- Used my own home decor for sentimental touches on the day of
- Instead of having a guest book, we had our guests sign and write in our Bible (so sentimental! I love looking at it)
- Even though it was hard to, I didn’t spend money on things I would use only once. I.e. things that said “bride” on them, extra outfits that I’d only wear once, wedding signs, etc.
- Instead of buying gifts for every single person (which somehow turned into a wedding “tradition”?) I made getting ready baskets for the bathrooms where the wedding party and families would be getting ready – like hairspray, makeup things, etc. And I bought my mom and mother-in-law nice perfumes that I knew they would love.
- There are probably a couple more things but here we are!
Before my wedding, however, I had a Christian medical mission to go on, and my bachelorrette!
In March I traveled to Guyana (a South American country) to participate in a medical mission trip with my pastor and a group of 15 other people. We tended to over 600 Amerindians in Southern Guyana in 4 days of active clinic. I got to use my OT skills while on the trip and absolutely loved it (so much that i’m going back next March!) I’ll have to make a separate blog post just about the trip, I learned so much and have so many ideas to take into next year’s trip.
In April I had my bachelorette trip to Washington State, I told my sister (maid of honor) to take me somewhere I’d never been a surprise me. We went to Olympic National Park (it’s on my bucket list to visit every national park!), hiked, drank great coffee, visited antique stores, went to Rialto Beach, and spent a little time in Seattle. Overall, we had a really great time!
Then in May came the wedding! It was the most beautiful wedding. It was stress free, perfect weather, no drama… Plus I got married. Definitely one of my favorite days ever!
A week after our wedding we flew out to Italy for our honeymoon. We spent 2 weeks in Italy, starting in Rome, then Florence, Bologna, Venice and finally, Milan, plus aa day trip to Lugano, Switzerland. We had the most amazing 2 weeks, eating amazing food, drinking cappuccino’s every day (all day), seeing all that Italy has to offer.
When we landed back in Florida, we spent a day moving all my things out of my house in Gainesville, and moved everything to our home in the Panhandle! Since then, I’ve been spending my time making our house a home. Cleaning, organizing, moving furniture, tending to our animals, learning new recipes and baking all the time (trying to find a reliable sandwich bread recipe).
Work
Luckily, my mother-in-law works at our local hospital (and when I say local, I mean the nearest town which is 8 miles away, a town with 1 stop light, otherwise the nearest town/hospital is 30 miles away) and has been hyping me up to the rehab director for the past few months. We met and he showed me the facilities, the hospital recently was accredited to be a critical access hospital with 25 beds. They had to create the OT position so it’s taken some time to make it all official, now I’m just waiting for the job posting to go up so that I can officially apply!
As some of you might know, my career goal is to work with new moms in the way of lactation consulting, pelvic health, etc. I recently got coffee with a local IBCLC (international board certified lactation consultant), to talk about this career path, opportunities in our area, education resources, hot topics in the field, and more! At this point, I’m saving money to take the CLC course to become a certified lactation counselor!
Day-to-Day Life
My daily life looks a lot like taking care of our chickens, daily Bible study, rearranging furniture, crocheting, baking, meal planning and visiting my husband’s grandparents and my in-laws. And of course trying to get back into OT Caroline things (writing blog posts and posting on social media)…
Stay tuned for more! Next up I’ll be sharing all about the mission trip I went on and how I was able to use my OT skills to serve the people!
OT Caroline 