Living in Minnesota

 

A very common question I get when people find out I did medical school in Minnesota is "Why?" I've always known I wanted to do primary care and the University of Minnesota is very good at primary care so I applied. I also liked the idea of having seasons. I grew up in Socal and Arizona, so I grew up with hot and hotter. Minnesota weather is about 6 months of winter and two months each of the other three seasons, except one month each of Spring and Fall feel like Winter lite. 

 

At the MN state fair

Living in socal, we had to "drive to the snow" so imagine my delight in opening my front door in Minneapolis and seeing snow. I remember the first few times of snow, I thought "look at all this free snow!" Little kids don't feel cold as long as they are not bored. Abel would routinely walk outside in 20 degrees with just a short sleeve shirt because "its not that cold." I've lost most of our Minnesota winter pictures in a misplaced hard drive. I've embraced the cloud since discovering I lost that hard drive.

Minnesota Children's Museum

In addition to enjoying the four seasons, medical school in Minnesota came with living in Minneapolis for two years due to normal class schedule M-F. Minneapolis has a light rail system and the kids LOVED riding the light rail. It was not a regular part of our life there, just mine, so we would literally just get on the light rail for the sake of getting on the light rail. It was like riding the city bus in LA. 

Minneapolis has kiddie 18 in pools throughout the city for littles

During our time in Minneapolis, the kids enjoyed subsidized karate and gymnastics classes, free swimming pools in the summer, free skating rinks and skate rentals in the winter, many well-kept parks, and access to things like the free Como Zoo and Minnesota Children's Museum. It was here that I discovered that I do, in fact, like city life. Well city lite, I could never live in the downtown area. I missed all this access when we moved 30 miles north to Ramsey. The house came with a 1 acre lot and no landlord. Our duplex landlord in Minneapolis complained about the kids running up the stairs, leaving their bikes in the front lawn, and other stuff I've already blocked out. 

Mowing the lawn. No sprinklers, this the driest it got.

In the winter, our deck became a second fridge / provider of snow cone snow

In medical school, I discovered that I am a good enough parent. Which sounds worse than it is, but very accurate in my case. I have no patience but I try. I never got to do activities as a kid and I did not want to perpetuate that for my kids. So I planned visits to the zoo, to the museum, got them enrolled in karate, did the water coloring on the deck during the spring. All while trying to drink from the fire hydrant that was medical school. I could have 100% done more, so good enough, indeed.

Water color painting on our deck