Hooray, It's February!

 Everyone told us the first six months of opening a practice are the toughest and the first year is really hard too.  So far, everyone was right!  My enthusiasm for February means we've got another month under our belt and are that much closer to the end of the six months of TOUGH.  I can already look back and see so much growth, both with the amount of patients Randy is seeing and how much he has learned.  I continue to pray all day for him.  I pray while I wash dishes, while I run errands, while I sit at red lights, and at every meal.  I wish I could have our office staff send me a text every time we got a patient so I wouldn't have to wonder, but that would be annoying and just make everyone super anxious with me so I resist.  But seriously, every day is a nail biter for me.  I wonder how long it will be before it won't feel that way?  {Don't answer that!}  But I'm also optimistic.  Randy is the best thing that ever happened to me and my life has been nothing but better than I expected since I met him so I'm counting on that pattern to continue with the practice.  Three months into this gig and Randy already made a profit for the month of January.  Seriously, no one does that!  I'm so proud of him.  But I haven't had the guts to ask him how much that profit was because it might only pay for a tank of gas but hey, a profit is a profit.
About nine months ago our friends got tired of Randy telling them all the reasons why he didn't think this practice was a good idea and they decided they'd take us out to dinner at the fanciest restaurant as soon as Randy was out of the red.  Randy told them to plan on April.  Well, Mr. Negative was wrong!  We went out to dinner last Friday at Montalcino Restorante Italiano.  The food was so delicious and Randy had to resist licking his plate and keeps talking about how good his dinner was so it was a great celebration.  We plan to go back when we celebrate that the practice will actually provide for our family of seven.  It will be sooner than he thinks!
We are getting ready to host an open house which I guess is pretty standard for specialty offices.  I'm channeling all my previous party planning expertise in hopes this open house will be one for the books.  But I'm so nervous!  Randy and I aren't known for throwing classy, pinterest-worthy parties.  They are fun, but definitely not fancy.  I don't even buy cute matching paper products for crying out loud.  Now I have to throw a nice party and make it look like a party planner did it all.  I'm so dead.
Here are some pics of the office which you can find on the website www.sammamishendo.com
It is not only beautiful but very calming.  Randy specifically picked the colors and artwork to soothe the troubled soul.  I think he nailed it.

The dental chairs are super comfortable and have memory foam type stuff in them.  I actually fell asleep during my root canal because I was so comfy.  And sleep deprived.

Tell me you like the stone because I love it!  I also picked it out as a last-minute design element.  I probably never mentioned that our architect/designer was indicted on 13 different counts of tax evasion.  We didn't find this out until we were finished with most of the design process so we just continued to move forward and he was relieved we didn't fire him (which wasn't really an option for us since our lease date was looming and time was of the essence) By the end we were doing everything without him so he could be in jail now for all I know.  Just one more thing to add to the drama of the build-out.

 This is the hallway leading toward the four operatories and the break room at the end.

 The front desk was my doing.  Randy left for a scout camp out while I had to finish hashing out all the details with the architect.  It took forever and then I had to race home, arriving minutes before Ethan's friends showed up for his birthday party I was throwing so that front desk represents a lot of stress for me.
I wish I had a picture of the bathroom because it's actually really pretty too and has a great story to go along with it.  I picked out a big circular mirror which I love!  Randy propped it up against the vanity while we stepped into the hall to get the hammer and nails and heard a huge crash.  We looked at each other in horror and froze.  We knew the mirror had fallen over on the tile floor and were sure it had shattered.  We walked back into the bathroom and lifted the mirror to see it was just fine.  That's when I knew my angel mother intervened because that mirror should have shattered in a million pieces and would've been the final straw.
The waiting room furniture and most of the final touches were picked out shortly after I had Henry which meant Randy and I were driving from store to store with a newborn.  I spent a lot of time nursing Henry in various parking lots in the Seattle area and using the Papa John's app on my phone to have dinner delivered to my neglected boys at home.  And all this was before I started daily radiation.  That's when things really got crazy.

The walls went in while I was in the hospital with Henry.  This is the first time all the boys saw the office space.

The hallway

The counter represents all sorts of "surprises" our designer put in the plans without telling us.  We've gotten used to them or removed what we could afford to remove. 

the bathroom tile that I picked out on a whim and Randy loves.  Probably because our designer hated it! 

Guess how much those glass doors cost?  I'll tell you.  $10,000.  

OK, now I'm feeling slightly sick as I re-hash the horrors of the build-out.  It makes my stress over the success of our practice pale in comparison.  It was a rough way to learn that we will NEVER EVER build a home.