....the camera isn't unpacked yet...

Hi friends!
Well, we're home from our weeklong adventure. We spent a week of vacation time in greater Minnesota again, searching out future practice opportunities. I must say, this is much harder than I thought it would be. I always pictured us finding the perfect place to go....about an hour from the grandparents, a nice independent practice in an area with clean lakes and lots of trees...with a good school system, great citizens, a grocery store with cheap prices, a life-sized stuffed T-Rex on main street and unlimited Thomas the Train rides. (ok...that's in Julia's perfect place....) You get the picture.

Unfortunately, we didn't find that town yet. It seems that all the places we visited had some excellent perks. Each place had a major flaw, however...and it is really, really hard to consider all of these different parameters and pick something. I guess there's no way to know if something is going to work out well until you try it, but this is a big deal. Ideally, Mike and I don't want to move again until we are in assisted living. :) Every time I have had to make a big decision in life, there have always been limiting factors to help guide the decision. I only looked at one undergrad institution. I looked at two med school (most people look at ten) and three residency programs (many med students look at ten or even TWENTY). This is the first (and hopefully the only) time in my life when I've (we've) had to make a big decision and there hasn't been any extenuating circumstances that have limited our scope. Mike is a pharmacist and I am a family doc. There is an enormous, huge, great, giant, big, humungous need for rural primary care docs and pharmacists right now. How in the world do I pick a place? How does Mike pick a place? How do we AGREE on picking the same place?!?!?

...

I have no idea how we are supposed to do this. I tried using the radio for guidance. We were in the car coming back from Ortonville, and I said to God, "Please just let the next song on the radio tell us where to go. I don't care what it says, just TELL me." I kid you not, about two seconds later, the DJ came on to introduce the next song, "No Such Thing" by John Mayer.

ha ha ha, God. You are funny.