Stefanie & Tyler

A lesser known fact about me is that I kinda really like cows. I think they are cool. I say hello to the cows that are often found on our road almost every time we pass them, it never gets old. Tyler thinks I am weird, but its okay. He probably would think I was weird even without the cow thing.

My grandparents raised cows when I was a kid so I think that is why cows just always spark fond memories for me. I used to love running out trying to coax the cows close to the fences so I could pet them and feel the funny feeling of their really long tongues on my hands. And my sister and I used to “help” my grandfather herd cows by running alongside their cow dog. I am sure it was quite adorable.

Anyways, this means the cows around Grenada are something I like. I have yet to be able to convince any of them to let me pet them though. So it was to my delight when one morning I woke up and walked to the front porch to find none other than the two little baby cows that are usually hanging around our apartment in our backyard! The front gate had been left open and the just waltzed in in search of new grass. It was a funny experience to herd out cows from our backyard at 7am in the morning.

And since this is a post about nothing other than cows, I feel it worth mentioning Tyler and I saw the tiniest, adorable baby cow while hashing recently as well. Momma cow was quite protective of the little one and was not so pleased I don’t think that so many people were trekking through her space. We kept our distance, but it made me quite excited. What can I say, baby things are kinda irresistible no matter what animal it is.

Oh, and you can note what happens when Tyler takes a selfie of us, I look microscopic. He may never learn that angling the camera down towards the ground kinda shrinks me…so he looks gigantic and I look teeny. Oh well, we are still cute.

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Less than 3 weeks to go and I will be 1/2 of a doctor!!! 6 days of lecture, 3 exams, countless cups of coffee – we can do this!

Our car is alive! Huzzah!!

The prayers seem to have worked and it is fixed. Changing the filters and fluid seems to have corrected the lack of shifting and the over-reving it was doing and the general part where is sounded like it was going to explode It is driving just like it used to.

Not sure how all of that is possible, but we are so excited! Thanks for the prayers. The Children Are Not Well is back to its normal level of wellness.

Lets hope it passes inspection later this month and then we can sell it on to its next owner.

Hallelujah!

There are moments when living here just gets so frustrating.

When I am studying and trying desperately to load some Wikipedia pages and the school’s internet just won’t do it.

When the car decides to not shift in reverse and I am trapped on campus waiting 30 minutes for a bus when all I wanted to do was go home and collapse.

When that mosquito will not stop buzzing in my ear and I can’t for the life of me seem to catch it.

The sound of the tape that is kinda-sorta covering the holes chewed by the mouse in our window screens flapping in the wind reminding me that after 2 months, they are still not fixed. Although they said they came and measured, so I guess that is good.

When the toilet wont flush because the tank doesn’t refill for some odd reason. Or the shower has no water pressure.

When it is so hot outside and so cold inside that I just want to place duct tape over all the airconditioning vents in the room so I can sit comfortably.

Sometimes I want to count down until May 30th and I feel like then I won’t have to deal with this kind of stuff anymore. We try so hard not to complain about here, we do. We want to make the best of the situation and remember we live in the Caribbean and paradise and all that. But sometimes I just want water pressure, and intact window screens, and an absence of mosquitos and internet that can load a webpage.

Tyler always says everyone awe’s over the beautiful picture of the African landscape but the reality is is smells like garbage. These little things, they are the garbage smell to our Caribbean life.

Pray for our patience and our car, our poor, poor car.

Update: The window screens were fixed, but the repair man shattered the window so now we need new glass (um, how does that even happen…good question) and the car’s transmission needs replaced. No Bueno.

Update 2: Tyler had the transmission fluid drained and the filter replaced on Friday and after a day passed, it started working properly again. Please keep praying!

Our daily life here in Grenada is quite uneventful and predictable. We tend to eat all 3 meals within a half-hour of each other everyday, I methodically switch out my study hall scarf every three days to avoid looking like I wear the same thing everyday, and I haul around the same book everywhere I go. In fact, me and my First Aid have become joined at the hip. And it is slowly becoming lovingly color-coded to perfection! Usually the only variable in our day-to-day life is whether we will watch 1 episode of Big Bang or be crazy and watch two.

We tend to feel bad we don’t share more updates, but then we remember we don’t do much. No worries, this is not a sad thing so much as a reality thing. With exams less than a week away (gasp!) we are more hermit-like than usual. I have staked out my seat in the library (although someone clearly forgot that was my spot tonight and I am currently relegated to a corner I only travel to in last resort).

But, a couple weekends ago, we were cool and exciting. We decided that a night off from study halls, AC, and home-cooking was in order and we decided it was Lobster night. Lobster season here is a magical time and even the most pricey restaurants here are still quite affordable when compared to what you might spend in the US. And lobster is gluten free, Tyler’s major selling point. So we went to one of our favorite lesser-known restaurants for a sunset beach walk, some lobster and rum punch. And because ending the night at like 8:30 always causes a bit of a complex we even went and grabbed dessert at one of the big, fancy resort hotels and sat on the beach for a bit admiring the stars. Relaxation at its finest if you ask me.

In other news, Tyler’s parents and sister come a week from Friday so we will be getting to spend some time with them. And I think Tyler is hoping for a restock on the TJs gfree pasta he loves so much. We have picked out some of our favorite new dishes I make for a couple dinners in and are praying the grocery store might actually stock the ingredients I need. All-in-all it will be fun to see them and will hopefully give us an excuse to sit on the beach and get a little sunshine. Although I might have to invite Mr. First Aid – USMLE is less than 5 months away.

Here are some pictures, because we know they are way better than whatever I have to say.  🙂

My incredibly colorful dessert.

I think the world is out to get poor Tyler and I. It would appear that something does not want us to be productive and/or to feel well.

My eyes have been giving me a lot of trouble. I don’t know if my new prescription is just not correct or if it is a light thing or reading too much on the computer. It seems to be worse reading up close, but I have been noticing a lot of eye strain and things seeming very blurry. I am considering seeing if there is an optometrist here who could actually see me and be helpful. I have the opportunity to be able to order glasses online that could be brought down with Tyler’s parents in March if I can figure out what is wrong.

I have also been having a lot of migraine headaches – like I had one everyday for a week. This is another thing that I was not anticipating getting so much worse so suddenly and randomly. Lets hope this trend ends soon.

And poor Tyler’s tummy has been acting up recently. We think it is nothing more than maybe a normal stomach bug as we are fairly certain he has had no gluten, but we are always on the look-out for when the possibility of food contamination might actually turn into a thing that affects him. Lets hope it is just a garden variety stomach thing and will pass and won’t actually be anything important.

All in all, I have been saying a lot lately that “today is not my day.” My friend today told me I needed a bush bath to get the bad mojo out.

So, prayers for healing and protection would be greatly appreciated. While they are all minor things, they can really damper a day and a mood which makes leading busy lives all that much harder.

Since we felt like we didn’t get much time to spend together and unwind – a vacation from our vacation as it were – we decided to set aside the first weekend. Tyler was coming off deadline and school was real slow so it worked perfect.

We decided to head up to one of the plantations in St. David which is one parish north of us. It is a very quiet part of the Island and away from everything busy and touristy. We had a delicious lunch in a tree-top balcony overlooking the bay and finished it with the most amazing chocolate dessert ever! We are still dreaming about it.

After our lunch we ended up going exploring at 2 of the local old forts, Fort Matthew and Fort Frederick. I left my camera battery on the charger, so I took some photos with my phone. They are therefore crappy, but maybe you can get a sense of some of the views. The Forts in Grenada have quite a history and the guides that walked around with us had a lot to say. I think they are always taken aback that we are not tourists and spend a lot of time thanking us for coming to the island and we have to remind them that we live here. But that is okay. Nevertheless, we got to walk through some underground tunnels that used to connect the entire Fort system. They are largely impassable now so we were only in a small part, but it was still neat. After our Fort adventure we stopped by Port Louis marina for some sunset drinks on our way home.

Here are a few of the photos!

After our relaxing lunch and fun adventures we came home to enjoy a little homemade gfree pizza night. Using some pizza dough mix we brought back from the states we concocted some delicious pizzas. Tyler was so happy to have his favorite food! I found some good and easy recipes to try on my own once we are back to grocery stores with large and reliable stock, but these will certainly do for now!

That about sums up our weekend. Since then it has been a slow roll back into the swing of things and exams are way too quickly approaching so it is med school madness again in the Paulson home.

I know, I know. I promised to finally post those backlogged posts from summer – I promise I want to but Term 4 is being mean to me already. But I at least got the pictures on my computer and have sorted through them. Okay, this week/weekend I will totally get on that.

But on other notes, I figure some updates on the Paulson life would suffice for now. Tyler first. We have postulated that he might be gluten intolerant. He has been feeling pretty bad the last month or so, and as he has told me over the last week he feels like he has been feeling off for the last year and half or so. So as with any and all persistent, non-illness related GI things the first thing any good doctor (or med student) thinks is gluten. Okay, that last part is a lie mostly because gluten intolerance/sensitivity/Celiacs is like REALLY hard to diagnose and many people get really frustrated by that. But I am new to the game so I can be on the lookout. But anyways, my first guess is gluten. It is a secret destroyer of people’s intestines. So poor Tyler has been put on a temporary gluten-free diet while we try and determine if that helps. I feel like if he suddenly decides in a couple weeks he feels better, we can feel pretty sure we found the culprit. If not, well, we will move on to theory B.

So that means for now we are on a strict diet. That also means I have to cook like every meal. Grenada is not going to be GFree friendly like back home could be. Restaurants are too risky, especially since he needs to be extra strict so we can feel confident on deciding if there is an association or not. So I have been reading food labels, buying ridiculously priced pasta made of rice, and feeding Tyler tons of veggies! I even made him gluten free chocolate chip pancakes – because I am nice like that. It is way too early to tell if it is working. He thinks he feels better, but I am wary of placebo effects and the like.

Me on the other hand, just life moving in to high-speed mode. And for whatever reason my neck/shoulder area that I have had troubles with forever has come back into being really annoying. I got the problem mostly better with my strict use of bookstands and appropriate posture/reading angles. But alas, pain has returned. Today I even got a massage after class because it was so bad and I was hoping that something would give me some relief for the week. We will hope this is a temporary thing.

So I guess prayers are appreciated for us both. Me for pain relief and Tyler for, well, relief in general. I personally feel like if gluten is it, at least we will have solved the problem. Tyler’s love for bread and pasta and all things gluten-y-goodness might hope otherwise. But I think we can make do. I do love to learn how to bake new things.