The Florida Bungalow

Well, it's been 8 months since we moved to Florida.  And I'm remembering that this little blog really was a good way to update my family and friends on our nomadic med school life. A fun way of keeping in touch.  A way that I've neglected since we became Floridians.

So without further delay, here's a first glimpse into our current life for those who have asked.

Several of you have asked how my dad is doing.  He's recovering and has put a lot of hard work into relearning to walk.  He's still himself, maintaining a good sense of humor, a laid back attitude, and patient perspective.  Still, travel is a bit tricky for him right now, so these pictures are a way to bring my life to him:)

I just love the home God has provided for us here.  We found it online 2 weeks before we moved away from Kansas City. Two weeks.  When I saw it, I sensed God's peace and knew it was the place he had for us for this next season.  He always provides.

In Colorado, He provided an apartment I deem "The Mountain Escape".

In Kansas City, He brought us to an apartment I affectionately call "The Tree House".

Here in Florida, He's settled us in "The Bungalow", a rental house.  Our first house actually. Well, not ours, I suppose.  But a house nonetheless.  And I'm so grateful for it.

It was the perfect location for both Matt and I to commute to work, and it didn't have any loud, obnoxious paint colors.  Thank you, Jesus. 

Behold The Bungalow:

They call sunrooms "Florida rooms" down here.  So here is the "Florida" room.
That couch is from Ikea, and the ottoman was a Craigslist score.

We needed an L-shaped console table for the "Florida room".  Matt offered to make me one. My man, while very smart and capable, had never, to my knowledge, made furniture by hand before.  I was a little skeptical.  But, not wanting to spoil his sweet offer, I told him what I had in mind.  Then, true to his word, he got to work and made me a table (two in fact!)

hard at work making my vision come true

he was so pleased that it was sturdy enough to stand on 3 legs

Almost done making his first piece of furniture.  I was amazed.

applying the stain  

Matt said, "That's a lot lighter than I thought it would be.  Did you remember to stir it first?"

Wait.  I was supposed to stir it?  Whoopsie.

Once painted and stained, we positioned the two tables in an L-shape to look like one piece.
Thank you, honey!

 Backing up a little bit, here is the living room where we do a lot of living:

I've had this dresser since before I met Matt.  It wouldn't fit in our tiny bedroom here, so it got repurposed as a TV stand.  I like the look of the wood in here.

Our frames got a sophisticated, neutral update.

To see Sara's photography site click here. 

This is a scene from Park Ave.around the corner from us.
It's the cutest little tree-lined, brick street of shops and restaurants here in Winter Park.

He's so handsome.
I'm a fan of blankets, even in Florida.  Matt named this one "Sweet Baby Gray".

dining nook
Our table just baaarely fit in this space.

guest room
Be. our. guest!  Be our guest!  Put our service to the test!

guest room
and a touch of my hometown

The picture above is one my mom took in the Marietta Square.  It was for a photography class assignment where she had to show parallel lines.  Didn't she do a good job?

And backing up to reveal a very exciting luggage rack with some posed luggage.

It's the little touches that make a house feel homey.
I love framing Scripture that God has spoken to my heart at pivotal times to remind me of the Truth.

Moving in took a little longer than past moves for various reasons, but when all was settled, I felt a huge relief.  I don't need big and fancy, but I have learned that I value aesthetics, and feeling "settled" and "at home" is comforting to me.

Aaand just to keep things real...

Here is the fan that fell out of the ceiling last week.  Thankfully, it didn't fall further and nobody was standing directly under it.

And here is the frog that came up from the toilet the other day, which naturally begs the question, "What else can come up through the toilet?"  Yikes!

I felt bad for him.

And here is one of the apparent millions of lizards in our yard.

Lizards are everywhere in Florida.
As are cockroaches (perhaps the vilest of God's creatures, second only to rats and possums).
I can't talk about it anymore.

On a brighter side of nature, one of my students brought me an orange from the orange tree in her yard.  I learned from our pastor friend the other day that oranges are sweetest after a cold snap.  Ah, the spiritual analogies...

an apple orange for the teacher!

These dark, grainy pictures are some of the only shots Matt and I have taken together since moving here. I'm including them so you don't forget what we look like;)

We miss you all!  It was nice to have you "over" to our place here.
Looking forward to some of you visiting in person!

Love, Matt and Liane 

Hi! My name is Liane, and I'm broken.

"We're to minister through our brokenness."

My mom shared that with me the other day, and I think I'm starting to get it.

I was used to being the outgoing one, the friendly one, optimistic and fairly confident.

But when we moved to Florida 5 months ago, I arrived as...the broken one. The scatterbrained one, the tired one, the one who doesn't want to make small talk with strangers, the one trying to hold herself together.  I was weepy.  My brain was foggy.  I was distractible and forgetful.  Sometimes grief (ah, blasted unpredictable grief), would come upon me without warning, without my permission, and at the most inconvenient times it seemed. Why is grief like that?  It lingers.  And pounces.

I felt like I had nothing to offer my potential new friendships here other than broken pieces of myself. And that felt horribly inconsiderate on my part.

I had just enough to offer my new job, but it was far from my best, and I knew it - and I hated that.  I felt clumsy.

Outside of my work acquaintances, I mostly avoided people for the first couple months we lived here.  We would get invited to a social get-together, and I would send Matt to represent us but would choose to stay home.  Church felt hard, not because I was angry at God, but because it exhausted me to answer people's well-intended questions about who we were, where we had moved from, what our summer was like, if we had kids, etc.  I didn't have pleasantries to exchange.  Just baggage to dump.  And I refused to dump baggage on some poor, unsuspecting, new acquaintance.

Can you imagine?

"Hey! We don't know anyone and just moved here right after having a miscarriage, and my dad was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor the other day.  Our rental house is still partially unpacked because of a discovered roach problem which is really causing added stress.  We're on our last leg and feeling pretty raw but in desperate need of community.  Wanna grab lunch?"

I just wanted a friend who knew me, really knew me, to sit with me on my couch and let me be my worst self.  One Sunday morning at a church we were visiting, I had to excuse myself and quietly cry in a stall in the bathroom.  I just felt so...sad. And unknown. And lonely.  So I asked Matt if we could take a hiatus from church-hunting for a month.

Who is this girl I had become??  She was a drag.  I didn't like her very much.  I'd think, "When's the old Liane coming back?  Will she come back?  I miss her."

Are you ungracious with yourself sometimes too?  Matt pointed out to me I am far more gracious with other people's brokenness and mistakes than I am with my own.  It's true, but I don't know why. Probably something having to do with pride and sin and not receiving God's grace fully and needing a counselor.

I felt like two people.  There was the me who needed to be handled gently - the broken one, the hurting one, the one who was forgetful and was having trouble focusing and needed a lot of reassurance and was embarrassed about that.

And then there was the other me - the one telling the broken one to get herself together, to buck up, to soldier on.  The one with some dignity who was still competent and self-assured. The one who remembered that everybody struggles.  The one who thought that now was not the time to wallow.  There was a new grade level to learn, a work team to contribute to, a house to unpack, a city to explore, a church to find, a grocery store to locate, a bank account to set up, a DMV to wait at, a community to assimilate into, new friends to make.  And I'd think, "You can't afford to be broken right now. There's too much to do. Get on with it.  Nobody likes someone who makes excuses."

And the other one would whimper in shame, feeling defeated, wanting just a little bit of coddling.

I was convinced that it was not a good idea for the new girl in town to share her brokenness.
How on earth would it promote friendship?  I was hesitant to put this rawer, weaker, vulnerable version of myself out there.  Better to let the broken season run its course in private.

But, then, something wholly unexpected happened.

My guard came down after school one day when a coworker must have asked me the right question at the right moment with the right expression on her face.  Because before I knew what was happening, I was bearing my soul and crying with her in her office.  In my 11 years of teaching, I have never done this at work.  I barely knew this woman.  What was I doing??  I'm the new girl in town.  I need to be proving my competence and composure! And yet, there I was. Softly crying, then ugly crying.  Sharing sadness, stress, and concerns I hadn't shared with anyone here.  It was kind of embarrassing, but it mostly felt very relieving. To finally share my heart with a real person.  To be honest.  To feel known in this new place.

She shared a little bit too and cried with me and prayed with me.  And the next day, I found this book on my desk with a sweet note inside:  

(pleasant gasp) What's this??

How thoughtful!

And I was struck by the fact that my brokenness didn't deter this new acquaintance.  She responded in love.  Christ's love.  Huh, Christ's love is down here in Florida too? ;)


The next week, a different coworker (one I didn't know and rarely see) quickly ducked into the nearest classroom because she felt tears forming and didn't want to cry in the hallway in front of people.  The classroom she happened to duck into?  Mine.  Coincidence? I think not.

She was quick to apologize and simply said she just needed to gather herself for a minute, she was having a stressful week.  I gently asked her what was going on.  She proceeded to share very honestly.  And my heart felt great sympathy for her.  Over the next hour, we talked in my empty classroom about real pain.  I asked questions, she shared.  She asked questions, I shared.  And, by the end of the conversation, a friendship was formed.  Another friendship that started not with jokes or even common interests, but simply with ... honesty. Honesty about brokenness.

Five names are coming to mind of people here who, after I shared my story, in turn, shared some really hard and painful stuff in their lives - some things that I can't imagine having to bear.  It was an honor to be entrusted with their hearts. Is that how they felt when listening to me share about my pain?  Was it not a burden after all?

I found that I could empathize in a different way than I had been able to before.  I felt myself actually feeling more deeply for them.  I knew what it was like to have recently cried hard about something.

An old friend's wise words have come back to my mind with clearer understanding.  She used to say, "Vulnerability breeds vulnerability."  Who wants to share her pain with someone she thinks has it all together?

I'm learning something here.  I'm learning that brokenness in fact can help create bonds.  It has acted as a relational catalyst of sorts, not a hinderance as I had feared.  And I'm not talking about a trite "misery loves company" sort of thing.  Nor an unhealthy codependence. No, this feels hopeful.  And good. A reminder that I'm pilgrimaging through this life alongside others who know longing and pain and have learned to cling to Jesus.  I love these new and few, but real, friendships God has provided here so far.  May He receive much glory through us sharing our brokenness with each other and looking to Him.  Together.

We're moving

again.

Some friends and family have asked what our medical path looks like.

It may be best to start from the beginning:

Matt graduated from college with a biology degree...spent a year in India.....moved back stateside.....worked as a salesman.....then a financial advisor for 6 years.....didn't love it.....talked about pursuing medicine.

He wondered if he was too old to pursue a medical career (him being the ripe age of 29 at the time).  Too old? I assured him that he was not too old and thought he should go for it.

So for the next year, he retook a couple classes....studied for and took the MCAT..... maintained his finance job.....applied to schools....and waited... 

studying for the MCAT

It made the least immediate financial sense for us to go this route, but we were on the same page and both at peace.  I could just totally see Matt practicing medicine.  It suits him and his interests.  He loves science, a good challenge, and genuinely cares for people.

I'll always remember the day Matt got his acceptance letter.  He opened it slowly, the two of us standing in the living room, holding our breath.  I saw that the first word of the letter was "Congratulations" and flung my arms around him saying, "You're a doctor!"  to which he laughed and replied, "No,...I'm not."  Because he wasn't.

He had just worked so hard to get in, and I was excited for him.

I tried to imagine our life as a teacher and a med student....accumulating student loans....living off my little teacher's salary.  And the Lord kept bringing me back to Matthew 6:25-34 which led us, a year and a half ago, to move with confidence from Colorado Springs to Kansas City.

Gosh, it looks so nearby on this map.  And a year and a half has zoomed by!

And so our medical journey began...

Matt's Medical Journey

Med school:

• 2 yrs. lectures/studying/taking tests (which we're now finishing up)
• 2 yrs. hands-on training in hospitals (graduate as "official doctor" after this)

Residency:

• 3-5 yrs. required graduate medical training (like being an "apprentice doctor")

Fellowship:

• 1-2 yrs. optional extra training (only if you want to "subspecialize")

Matt's med school assigns students to various U.S. cities for the second 2 years (the hospital training years), based on what everyone submits as their top 3 city preferences, taken from a list of options.

The students and students' families eagerly await results of this "Clerkship Match", curious where they will be living for the next 2 years.  *This Clerkship Match is not to be confused with the big residency match in a couple years.

We put Kansas City as our #1 choice.  We have community here now - good friends....church family....purposeful and fulfilling job for me....  And moving is expensive.

It would be simpler to stay.

After hearing that students who wanted to stay in Kansas City historically got matched here, we were pretty confident we'd get our first choice.

Needless to say, we were caught a little off guard when Matt received the phone call that he didn't match to any of the 3 cities he submitted, meaning he would have to choose from a list of cities that still had openings available.  Whatever those cities were.

Up until this point, things have been going pretty smoothly for Matt in med school.  While it's certainly not cake for him, he has experienced success, making me want to to shout from the rooftops how proud I am of him!  But this match isn't based on student performance, I learned.  It's random.  And that right there is the rub (I've always wanted a reason to say, "Ah, there's the rub.")

21 students out of a class of 240+ didn't match to one of their choices.

Still, I know it's not a fluke that we were among them and have a firm confidence that, for reasons now unknown to us, God is sovereignly moving us away from Kansas City to a city that He has matched us to.  Nothing thwarts His plans.

So, we're moving in July.

That's weird to write, because I feel like we just moved to Kansas City.  But such is our med school journey.

One concern I do have is that my new Kansas City friends, coworkers, and students' families will perhaps think me blasé about leaving.  Breeze in/breeze out.  But that's not how it is. This place and my job have become special to me.  (And I was just starting to get the hang of 2nd grade, to gain traction and vision!)  I'm a stay-er.  I don't know if I would have ever left my previous CO teaching position, had we not been forced to move for med school. I hate leaving my school in a lurch to find another teacher, but I have no delusions that I'm irreplaceable and know that God will meet their needs as He will meet mine. He's efficient that way.

So, to the Kansas City folk I've had the pleasure of befriending and working with:  I'll miss you.  Thank you for welcoming me and showing Christ's love to this newcomer.  I've loved our conversations.

And to our med school friends staying in KC:  we'll sure miss you and are looking forward to reuniting for graduation in a couple years.  Won't that be a happy day?

While we didn't expect this early of a move and haven't a clue where we will live in our new city....where I will work....who our friends will be....what our finances will look like...., I know Jesus is going with us and will take care of us.  And that really does alleviate worry for me.

My friend and mentor Christin gave me this book when I was in college, and I've since reread it several times.  It's a little book, easy to read in a sitting or two, but opened my eyes in a life-shaping way to what Jesus being my Good Shepherd actually means.

A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23

On my last job application, I had to write about a book that impacted me.  I wrote about this book.

The author, a former shepherd, led me through Psalm 23, line by line, sharing stories of his own shepherding experiences.  I never before understood the depth of my Shepherd’s love and detailed care for me as I have since reading this book.

One of my favorite lines from the book is:

“I know of nothing which so stimulates my faith in my heavenly Father as to look back and reflect on His faithfulness to me...Over and over He has proved his care and concern for my welfare.”

It's true!  When I look back over my life, I see Him.  I see Him when I think about how He moved some anonymous person's heart to pay for me and my brother's school registration when my parents were out of work......I see Him when He gave me undeniable renewed strength to handle a troubled student with grace and peace when I was at my wit's end.....I see Him when he led Matt and me, blind as we were in a new place, to a cozy apartment in Kansas City that, though not fancy, is perfectly suited to us.  I see His care.

Residency will probably move us again.  Then after residency, we'll likely move again. That comes to about 4 potential out-of-state moves in 9 years.

Someone recently said to me, "Moving all the time for med school would be hard for me." But, it's really not that hard.  I know this Earth isn't my home, so moving around on it doesn't feel like a huge deal.  And God's promised presence makes me excited to follow Him to the next place.

And too, we're moving within the continental U.S., so really, is there that big of a life change to get used to?

I'll still admit I'm glad we're not moving to Warren, Ohio - a possibility.  Matt asked how I felt about moving there, and the first word that came to my mind was "depressed" (I know that's unfair because I haven't been there, but that's the word that came to my mind.)

Still, if we had been sent to Warren, Ohio, I took comfort in trusting that Jesus would be with me and would satisfy me even there.  But for now, we won't be moving to Warren, Ohio.

So what city are we moving to, you ask?

I'll give you a hint:  It's south, and Mickey and Minnie will be our new neighbors.

We are moving to Orlando, Florida.

After the initial surprise of the moving news, we started to get excited for a few reasons:

Not the least of which is that we'll be only 7 hours from my family in Atlanta, Georgia which will be the closest (geographically) I have been to them in 10 years.

my family

After embracing my adventurous-move-to-Colorado-far-away-from-home season in my 20's, I'm excited to be near family again.  I foresee the occasional weekend trip to visit them or maybe a Disney World get-together, who knows?

On cold days, when our snow shovel is broken and our car remains buried, I get excited thinking about the warm weather.  In my heart-of-hearts, I'm a warm weather girl.  And I love the beach. Even though Orlando is not on the beach, it's the closest I will have ever lived to a beach.

Also, coincidentally, we found out some dear and personally influential friends of ours may be moving there too.  Huh.

And of course we're excited and ready for Matt to start his hospital rotations and to see what interests him.

All in all, I'm very grateful for our time in Kansas City.  While I'm not looking forward to packing boxes and saying goodbyes, I am looking forward to this next season, seeing how God provides for us and makes a way for us, as He always does.  We'll have new stories to tell about his faithfulness.

We have a little over 4 months until the big move.  If anyone wants to give us big boxes, we'll take em.  We'll also take prayer...and monetary gifts;)  Just kidding.  But seriously.

Friends traveling to Orlando, contact us!  We love visitors.

So there's our news.  Here we come, Florida!