The Dustin and Stacey Show!: July 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Dress!

This weekend I got my wedding dress! After 2 1/2 hours on Saturday and 2 1/2 hours on Sunday, I was finally able to decide! It's very exciting but also stressful and crazy! At one point, I wanted to cry! It was so hard! But I did it! I am one HUGE step closer to walking down the aisle! I can't believe it's really real! At first I felt like I was playing dress up! It was fun! My Mom (and Dad for part of it), friend Calee and soon to be Mom-In-Law were there to experience the excitement and help me pick out "the dress" and I had a wonderful, patient personal assistant/coordinator named Leslie who, funny enough, is getting married in May also. :) I am a bit sad this part of the process is over, but I think I came out with a knock-out dress! I can't describe it here (I don't want to spoil it for Dustin) so you'll just have to wait till next year. We'll post pics after the wedding.
Just wanted to share the first milestone in our little wedding planning adventure!

Coffee!! Coffee!!

My absolute favorite thing about Springfield (except for the presence of Dustin of course) is the Mudhouse. They brew up the very best coffee in the world.

All about Coffee

A Coffee Deal...When the smell of hot coffee comes
your way your eyes brighten up and you're ready to
deal with the day!

Coffee Whirl...Turn me around and head me in the
direction of coffee!

Coffee Bloopers... I went to perk a pot of coffee and
perked up my life!

With Coffee...And a smile it's as good as it gets at the
moment!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Dustin's Movie Update!

So I'm not one of those people that checks out movie trailers online all the time, but I happened to be looking around today and thought I'd share my most-anticipated-yet-likely-generally-unknown upcoming movie. I guess it technically was released the 20th, but it comes to Springfield tomorrow. The movie is...(drumroll please)..."SUNSHINE". Sounds like a happy feel good movie right? Well, let me tell you that it's probably more happy feel good than the last movie this director and star teamed up to do. What movie would that be you might ask? The masterful "28 Days Later." If you haven't seen that movie, you should definitely check it out...it's a zombie/horror movie that's actually good (awesome actually)! Anyway, back to "Sunshine". Brief plot, "50 years into the future, the Sun begins to die, and Earth is dying as a result. A team of astronauts are sent to revive the Sun - but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team are sent to finish the mission as they are Earth's last hope." And from the trailer, all kinds of crazy crap is going to happen! Anyway, you can check out the trailers here.

And my "What The Crap?" award goes to "1-18-08." Yep, that appears to be the title (or maybe just the release date and they don't have a name yet). Check out the trailer here and the equally odd website you'll be saying "What the crap?" too! But it's from producer J.J. Abrams (woohoo Lost!), so it may be really good, but I have no clue what's going on from the trailer...apparently there's a party and then stuff starts getting destroyed. That's all I got. Anyway, enjoy!

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Brandi Carlile

While I'm not as completely in love with Columbia as most people are that live here, there is a small handful of things that I will really miss once I leave. One of the main things I'll miss is BXR, quite possibly the best radio station I've ever heard. Springfield definitely has nothing like it. I guess to try to describe the music they play, I would say it's pop/rock/folk type music (think of the songs on the Garden State soundtrack and you have a pretty good idea), and a lot of times it's from artists I've never heard of before. They have introduced me to artists like Snow Patrol, Jack Johnson, Little Willies, and Postal Service, and they play great music from other bigger name artists I know like Fiona Apple, Carbon Leaf, Foo Fighters, Nickel Creek, The Shins, Train, and The Wallflowers.

My current amazing song of choice is The Story by Brandi Carlile. This song is, in my opinion, unbelievable. Her voice is pretty rough, but, man, it works beautifully. Just now I've listened to the song like 10 times in a row, and I get chills every time. Her website has 30 second clips of all her songs, and her MySpace has 4 full songs (including The Story) that you can listen to which are all definitely worth your time. Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think!

Dustin

Saturday, July 14, 2007

What a Week!

So I had a really really rough week at work. We have several big and exciting things going on right now, which is good, but also very stressful. Each new thing required lots of promotion and designing projects for me and the other designer.

Now, I love being busy and I love all these new things. They keep me learning and pushing myself. But I'm pretty sure my computer is semi-human and can sense when I have big things going on. It always starts freaking out right in the middle of some big and important deadlines. At one point this week, I had several things that were due right then and my computer froze and then wouldn't boot up again. I worked for half an hour just getting it to start. I was just about in tears!
So this last week, we were given a million and one things to do and just a few small minutes to do them. That's how it usually is. By the time we get an assignment, it was really due yesterday. So this week I pushed myself farther than I have ever before (I thought college was tough!), working most days through lunch breaks and most days either coming in early or staying late (sometimes both). With both jobs I worked over 60 hours last week, being stressed out and wondering if I was going to finish even half of what needed to be done. I was emotionally and physically exhausted!

Now here's the funny ironic thing! A while back, I was given a little desk card holder that houses about 100 or so little cards with Scripture verses and devotionals on them. This week I flipped over a card and this was my verse of the week.
Ephesians 6:7 "Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people." When I first flipped that over on Monday morning, I didn't pay much attention to it. But as the week went on I kept looking at it and thinking, "How funny that God would give me that verse this week!"
~Stacey~

Monday, July 9, 2007

The Standardized Patient

So it seems like everyone and their brother always asks me about what medical school is like when they find out that's what I'm doing. And I'm always happy to share. But here's an article I found with the opposite point of view...what it's like being the first patient for a group of med students (scary!). Here's an idea:

There are some obvious things you hope no doctor ever says to you, but on this assignment, I discovered there are a few others:
"I have to admit I have some butterflies."
"I've never felt anyone's liver."
"I'm so sorry! Are you all right?"

It's a funny and actually (maybe scarily) a pretty accurate article. Looking back, I can see a little bit of myself when I started out with patients in some of the students the article talks about...hopefully, my comfort and skills have improved at least a little bit (for example, I have not said "Oops!" while doing a pelvic exam since my first!).

On a related note, most likely everyone that knows me has already heard me talk about this book, but if you like this article, then you should definitely check out Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, probably my favorite book of all time. In fact, I had to look and see if Mary Roach had written the article as well. She hadn't, but very well could have. If you want to borrow Stiff, let me know...I actually have 2 copies. :) But, just to warn you, once you read it, you'll probably want to have a copy (or 2) to own forever and ever. Anyway, enjoy!

Dustin

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Vote for Springfield! Springfield, MO that is...

If you haven't heard, they're holding a contest to determine in which Springfield the Simpsons Movie premiere will be on July 27th. One of the 14 possible Springfields is none other than good ol' Springfield, MO! Each candidate city made a 5 minute film which can now be watched online and voted on to determine where the premiere will be. If you watch the Springfield, MO video and listen real close, you may be able to hear Stacey and me in the stadium shots booing and cheering! That's right, we were there! Yep, we're movie stars now (no autographs please).

I've now spent over an hour watching all 14 clips, and, although I may be a bit biased, I think I have to say that Springfield, MO's is by FAR the best! Don't believe me? Check them out. Most of them are pretty craptastic (*cough* Florida *cough*). Anyway, even if you don't want to watch them, you should all still vote for Springfield, MO and then tell all your friends, family, and maybe even a distant acquaintance or two to vote for Springfield, MO too!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Keith Urban Concert!

For my birthday, my Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother bought Dustin and I tickets to see Keith Urban in concert in good Ol' St. Louis. He is one of our favs.

It was a wonderful, wonderful time. I screamed my brains out. :) It was so amazing being there! I couldn't believe I was standing there listening to the great Keith Urban! Crazy!! So some of you are probably thinking "Who in the heck is this Keith Urban dude?" Well, here's his site if you want to check him out.

It all started with him rising out of the floor. And the crowd went crazy! A lady behind us took our picture with Keith Urban! He's in the middle, between our heads. Far away, but still in the picture. :)

One good thing (there were many good things) was that there was not a bad seat in the house. Behind the stage was a ginormous screen that showed Keith close up. In the next few pics you can see this. If you look at the bottom right you can see our veiw of Keith without the screen and then you see him close-up on the screens. Amazing! You could see the holes in his shirt and the sweat on his face. It was that close!!

There also was a platform where they came out into the audience and played for awhile. We were on the first level of seats and were pretty close to this little stage.
At the end, they shot confetti everywhere. You could barely see him through the mass of flying colors.

And then all the greatness ended, or so we thought (well not really. We knew he'd be back for an encore). We cheered for, what seemed like an hour, before he came back to play several more amazing songs. He told us he called his wife, Nicole Kidman, while he was back stage. I guess that's allowed! :) The wait was well well worth it!