My weekend started off wonderfully - Joshua and I celebrated his 25th birthday on Friday by going out to dinner and then falling asleep at a geriatric-approved early hour (I blame the wine).
Saturday took a turn for the worse, when Joshua skipped off to a men's breakfast at church, telling me he'd be back after it ended at 12:30. I bummed around the house, reading blogs (but not updating this one - sigh), and pretending to organize. At 12:45, I started to wonder why he hadn't called me yet. Joshua and I always call each other. To the point of being obnoxious. I don't think either of us has ever really wondered where the other is since we got married. We just know.
12:55 - Starting to freak out a little. Sent one text, called his phone once.
1:10 - Freaking out quite a bit more. Follow-up text, two (maybe five) calls to his phone.
1:20 - Wringing my hands, wondering exactly where he crashed our car (not an unlikely thought, and those of you who have driven with him will understand) and wondering when the police would be arriving at my apartment. Also at this time, I had to call work and get my assignment for the shift, all the while wondering if I would be calling back to cancel because Joshua was in some ER somewhere with 3 broken bones or worse.
1:30 - Frantic. In my scrubs, walking down the street towards church, in the rain, looking for the crash site. Church is a good 4 miles away, so I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping to accomplish here.
1:35 - Joshua finally calls me back. The breakfast ran LATE! His coat was on the other side of the ROOM! His cell phone was in his COAT! It was all so damn LOGICAL! And naturally, I could not translate my overwhelming fear that he had lost life or limb into anything appropriate other than yelling at him. And then I ran back home (still in my scrubs. still in the rain), feeling totally ridiculous, but definitely assured of the fact that I love my husband and don't ever want to be without him.
I realize this story makes me sound like a possessive freak, but really I am not. The take-home here is that when your husband routinely makes questionable decisions while driving, even a short amount of time when he cannot be located is petrifying (he is going to love me for posting this, I'm sure). And what did people do before cell phones!?!? The dark ages, I am sure.
However, Sunday went right ahead and topped Saturday in terms of distressing events. Yes, I can now say that I have been sexually harassed by an incontinent elderly man while in the middle of changing his diaper (don't worry, this happened in the context of my job. Which sounds awesome, right? Some nights as a nursing assistant make me wonder why I quit the Gap) Really, the story is much more dramatic than that but I do not feel comfortable writing about it as his comments were totally inappropriate and beyond that, I know I should be preserving my patients' dignity along with my own.
Ahem.
So now it is Monday and I have had too much coffee (NO I WILL NOT BE STOPPING. No one was really on board with that idea. Joshua was frightened.) I bought all the ingredients for my Thanksgiving pies this morning, along with actual real ingredients for meals - a novel idea - and now I have officially postponed my homework to the very last possible second.
Tonight we're decorating the place for Christmas! Three days early, but we won't be here for Thanksgiving, and I don't want to miss a moment of Christmas decor when we return.
Waaaayy too much coffee this morning.
19 November 2007
14 November 2007
My obsession with espresso is well documented. Especially in our checkbook. I think I've alluded to my truly awful Starbucks habit, which began when I lived in Seattle for 5 months, pulling off only one feat in my whole time there - gaining about 15 pounds. I was so naive when I hit the west coast. I honestly did not know you could ask for nonfat milk, and I didn't understand the sugar content of flavored syrups. I did not know that my daily vanilla AND hazelnut WHOLE MILK latte was just a 10% post-consumer recyclable ticking time bomb for my hips.
By the time I left Seattle for Chicago, I was a little wiser, a lot poorer, and absolutely not thinner. But don't worry, I am still not reformed. In the past three days, I have had two peppermint mochas with whip (and nonfat milk, the ultimate hypocrisy) and I have loved every glorious, minty-chocolately, lick-the-cup-clean sip. Worse, over this past weekend, I actually went to Intelligentsia twice in one day. To be fair, it is the best espresso I have ever had, but I don't think it excuses the fact that I showed up at two SEPARATE locations in 6 hours, looking for a fix. We had friends in town from California, and I'm pretty sure they are now more familiar with the decor at our local coffee haunts than they are with the tourist attractions we saw while trying to accomplish our real goal - getting more coffee.
Ok, what I am trying to say is, I have a problem.
The problem goes beyond the pounding headaches and 3pm listlessness I experience if I don't start out my day with caffeine. I have begun to feel naked without a beverage at hand, especially now that it's getting colder, so you can add psychological dependence to my list of coffee issues. But let's face it (I DON'T WANT TO BUT I MUST), it's a big waste of money to buy $4 espresso drinks on a regular basis. Twice in a day is roughly equivalent to tearing up dollar bills for fun.
We don't have an espresso machine, but we have a decent drip coffeemaker, as well as a Bialetti and a french press. We buy good beans and grind them ourselves and we have no shortage of travel mugs to haul to school and work. Our coffeemaker even has a timer, so we could theoretically wake up to the scent and sounds of brewing coffee on these dark, cold November mornings.
Or, we could forget about that the night before, oversleep, race out of the door because we're about to be late, and manage to grab Starbucks at some point that morning (and afternoon?) to pull us through the day. Everyone is busy, and a lot of people out there are probably busier than we are.
So how do I quit this thing?
By the time I left Seattle for Chicago, I was a little wiser, a lot poorer, and absolutely not thinner. But don't worry, I am still not reformed. In the past three days, I have had two peppermint mochas with whip (and nonfat milk, the ultimate hypocrisy) and I have loved every glorious, minty-chocolately, lick-the-cup-clean sip. Worse, over this past weekend, I actually went to Intelligentsia twice in one day. To be fair, it is the best espresso I have ever had, but I don't think it excuses the fact that I showed up at two SEPARATE locations in 6 hours, looking for a fix. We had friends in town from California, and I'm pretty sure they are now more familiar with the decor at our local coffee haunts than they are with the tourist attractions we saw while trying to accomplish our real goal - getting more coffee.
Ok, what I am trying to say is, I have a problem.
The problem goes beyond the pounding headaches and 3pm listlessness I experience if I don't start out my day with caffeine. I have begun to feel naked without a beverage at hand, especially now that it's getting colder, so you can add psychological dependence to my list of coffee issues. But let's face it (I DON'T WANT TO BUT I MUST), it's a big waste of money to buy $4 espresso drinks on a regular basis. Twice in a day is roughly equivalent to tearing up dollar bills for fun.
We don't have an espresso machine, but we have a decent drip coffeemaker, as well as a Bialetti and a french press. We buy good beans and grind them ourselves and we have no shortage of travel mugs to haul to school and work. Our coffeemaker even has a timer, so we could theoretically wake up to the scent and sounds of brewing coffee on these dark, cold November mornings.
Or, we could forget about that the night before, oversleep, race out of the door because we're about to be late, and manage to grab Starbucks at some point that morning (and afternoon?) to pull us through the day. Everyone is busy, and a lot of people out there are probably busier than we are.
So how do I quit this thing?
13 November 2007
NaBloPoMoNoMore
All I can say is...
I might not be a very consistent blogger, but I spent all my time this weekend with good friends and too much wine and I laughed a lot and barely studied and I absolutely do not regret a thing.
All that being said...
I will still be trying to blog as much as realistic for me and my life this month. If that's every day, that's great. If not, I'm generally having more fun doing whatever it is I'm doing (I have no problems blogging on a day full of homework and studying expectations, so count me in for posting excessively during finals week).
Both Joshua and I have midterms this week, the sink just got piled up last night with dinner dishes, the apartment kind of fell into disarray between 5pm and midnight,and we're out of clean clothes and coffee. So all is right in our world again.
I might not be a very consistent blogger, but I spent all my time this weekend with good friends and too much wine and I laughed a lot and barely studied and I absolutely do not regret a thing.
All that being said...
I will still be trying to blog as much as realistic for me and my life this month. If that's every day, that's great. If not, I'm generally having more fun doing whatever it is I'm doing (I have no problems blogging on a day full of homework and studying expectations, so count me in for posting excessively during finals week).
Both Joshua and I have midterms this week, the sink just got piled up last night with dinner dishes, the apartment kind of fell into disarray between 5pm and midnight,and we're out of clean clothes and coffee. So all is right in our world again.
09 November 2007
I am beginning to think that posting on a blog everyday is ridiculous. Narcissistic. Annoying. And it's been less than a week!
I don't have a theme, you know? "Food Blogger", "Mommy Blogger", "Crafting Blogger" (um...there are a LOT of knitting and crocheting blogs. A LOT. People are out there knitting CORAL and all sorts of craziness.) I do not have the mad creative skillz to recreate sea barnacles in yarn. Also, I have no children and I cook sporadically. Thus, my little blog begins to bore me and my 4 readers.
Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away, and Joshua and I are bringing the salad/vegetable/dessert portion of the meal. We'll be celebrating at his brother and sister-in-law's new townhome in the 'burbs, after I work the night shift from 11pm on Wednesday until 7:30am on Thanksgiving morning. (Let me count the ways that I love the profession I have chosen!) I am not trying to make this into a cooking blog, but I need some ideas for said salad/vegetable/dessert.
Thoughts, 4 readers??
I don't have a theme, you know? "Food Blogger", "Mommy Blogger", "Crafting Blogger" (um...there are a LOT of knitting and crocheting blogs. A LOT. People are out there knitting CORAL and all sorts of craziness.) I do not have the mad creative skillz to recreate sea barnacles in yarn. Also, I have no children and I cook sporadically. Thus, my little blog begins to bore me and my 4 readers.
Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away, and Joshua and I are bringing the salad/vegetable/dessert portion of the meal. We'll be celebrating at his brother and sister-in-law's new townhome in the 'burbs, after I work the night shift from 11pm on Wednesday until 7:30am on Thanksgiving morning. (Let me count the ways that I love the profession I have chosen!) I am not trying to make this into a cooking blog, but I need some ideas for said salad/vegetable/dessert.
Thoughts, 4 readers??
08 November 2007
NoMoreTimeToday
Note to self! If you have clinical in the morning and need to be up at 5:30am, do not go out for coffee at 7pm the night before and order a grande caramel latte! You will dearly regret the caffeine and sugar when you wake up at 1:40, 2:15, 3:23, 4:18, 4:40 and 5:02! When you cannot get back to sleep after 5:02 and realize that you just had a dream about one of your professor failing you for skipping a clinical (which has never happened. not ever.), you will be bitter.
You will also be bitter when, despite wake-me-up chai tea at 7am, and a keep-me-up latte at 11am, you fall asleep waiting for your clinical instructor to sign off on your charting.
You would think after two years of this, I'd have developed some better habits with the caffeine and the sleeping. You would be wrong.
I happen to know that at least one person out there is having a much more thrilling day than me - while I was packing sterile gauze into my patient's gaping surgical incision, (don't worry, I was quite alert at the time) my friend Tricia won $1000 from a local radio station! Lucky dutch.
You will also be bitter when, despite wake-me-up chai tea at 7am, and a keep-me-up latte at 11am, you fall asleep waiting for your clinical instructor to sign off on your charting.
You would think after two years of this, I'd have developed some better habits with the caffeine and the sleeping. You would be wrong.
I happen to know that at least one person out there is having a much more thrilling day than me - while I was packing sterile gauze into my patient's gaping surgical incision, (don't worry, I was quite alert at the time) my friend Tricia won $1000 from a local radio station! Lucky dutch.
07 November 2007
Compost. Let's Get This Out of the Way, Shall We?
The first time I saw a compost bucket in someone's house, I will admit to being a little freaked out. This particular compost receptacle was an old ice cream container, a faded yellow tub full of banana peels, coffee grounds and egg shells that set next to the kitchen sink at one of my friend's houses. I was 16 at the time, and that bucket was like, so disgusting.
My friend caught me eyeing this festering heap of trash, so she explained very nonchalantly that her mother used the compost to enrich their garden soil. Clearly she did not think it was a big deal, and I felt she was slightly cooler than me, so I immediately placed compost in my Actually Kind of Cool mental category. It's still surprising that this made such a big impression on me, because I'm pretty sure we then we ran out the door to drink someone else's mother's vodka or smoke cigarettes or something horribly teenage-ish.
I only knew one thing about vegetable gardens at that time. We had one in my backyard when I was a child, and we were forced to sod over it when the snapping turtles from the pond down the block decided it was the perfect place to lay their eggs. Our cat, who had been abandoned at that very same pond as a newborn kitten, had a hero complex and thought he could battle snapping turtles. Before you know it, my father was in the front yard standing between a fifty pound pregnant killer turtle and a twenty pound hissing feline with a shovel raised above his head, yelling, "The garden has GOT TO GO!"
And it went. So did the cat.
Here we are, seven or so years later, and I have compost in my kitchen too. Not on the counter, since we don't have anywhere 'out back' to dump it every day. No, I have a shoebox in my freezer lined with a Target bag, and into that shoebox goes our eggshells, coffee grounds, potato peels and all other non-meat food waste. Joshua and I walk it down the alley to a compost container that sits in someone's backyard. The compost we contribute to then gets hauled over to a neighborhood garden, which is growing organic fruit and vegetables. We are doing our (very!) small part to contribute to decreasing post-consumer waste and support community, urban gardens.
Soapbox moment: Composting is extremely easy to do if you have either freezer space, or the desire to drop it off somewhere every other day or so. It's expensive to buy mulch, so you are not only reducing your local landfill, you are helping out local farmers and gardeners. Two bonus points: Less trash to take out. And the look on your friends faces when they open up your freezer!
My friend caught me eyeing this festering heap of trash, so she explained very nonchalantly that her mother used the compost to enrich their garden soil. Clearly she did not think it was a big deal, and I felt she was slightly cooler than me, so I immediately placed compost in my Actually Kind of Cool mental category. It's still surprising that this made such a big impression on me, because I'm pretty sure we then we ran out the door to drink someone else's mother's vodka or smoke cigarettes or something horribly teenage-ish.
I only knew one thing about vegetable gardens at that time. We had one in my backyard when I was a child, and we were forced to sod over it when the snapping turtles from the pond down the block decided it was the perfect place to lay their eggs. Our cat, who had been abandoned at that very same pond as a newborn kitten, had a hero complex and thought he could battle snapping turtles. Before you know it, my father was in the front yard standing between a fifty pound pregnant killer turtle and a twenty pound hissing feline with a shovel raised above his head, yelling, "The garden has GOT TO GO!"
And it went. So did the cat.
Here we are, seven or so years later, and I have compost in my kitchen too. Not on the counter, since we don't have anywhere 'out back' to dump it every day. No, I have a shoebox in my freezer lined with a Target bag, and into that shoebox goes our eggshells, coffee grounds, potato peels and all other non-meat food waste. Joshua and I walk it down the alley to a compost container that sits in someone's backyard. The compost we contribute to then gets hauled over to a neighborhood garden, which is growing organic fruit and vegetables. We are doing our (very!) small part to contribute to decreasing post-consumer waste and support community, urban gardens.
Soapbox moment: Composting is extremely easy to do if you have either freezer space, or the desire to drop it off somewhere every other day or so. It's expensive to buy mulch, so you are not only reducing your local landfill, you are helping out local farmers and gardeners. Two bonus points: Less trash to take out. And the look on your friends faces when they open up your freezer!
06 November 2007
Day 2. Or 7. Depending on How You Look At It.
The past two weeks have been defined for Joshua and I as The Time For Soup. As in, it has finally gotten consistently chilly here, and the market is overflowing with all sorts of root vegetables and meat and things that I want to throw into a soup pot and keep it on my stove all day making my apartment smell delicious.
We have made soup five (5! like the days I missed of NaBloPoMo! how ironic!) times recently, starting with winter squash soup which came from allrecipes, although now I can't find the exact one I used. It was a little blah, I can't lie. I know it involved butternut and acorn squash, along with sage, cumin, cayenne, and cinnamon. I really needed to ramp up the spiciness, but I was a little afraid of the flavor combination. One of my friends came over later that night and threw in a lot more of all the spices, then declared it amazing. So...I will need to rethink my hesitation there. Also, she is the last person I expected to dive into my fridge and eagerly pull out squash soup, so this has the potential to be a winner.
Soup #2 came Straight From The Farm, one of the many food blogs I read to a level of near-obsession. Roasted rosemary potato leek soup is as amazing as it sounds, although I am not a very careful measurer, and I overdid it on the rosemary a little. Next time I would add more leeks and tone down the rosemary to balance out the flavors. And if you are not really into soup, this can be just a great recipe for rosemary roasted potatoes.
Soup #3 was created out of a need to finish off a chicken that Joshua and I had picked up at the farmer's market and then roasted Ina Garten style (lemons stuffed in the cavity, over some yellow onions that just char as the chicken cooks...um, she is my hero. The recipe is from her book Barefoot in Paris, one of my favorites). I shredded the leftover lemon-y roasted chicken into our crockpot with chicken broth, chopped up onions, green beans, frozen corn, and peruvian blue potatoes. Comfort food. No recipe needed. (It was really good, but not that pretty. Especially don't make it with blue potatoes if you want to impress your friends)
Soup #4, a triumph, came from Deb at SmittenKitchen.If you are not reading her blog (daily) you should be. This sweet potato and sausage soup is one of the best things I have ever made, even though I substituted chicken chorizo for linguica (a Portuguese sausage I could not find, even at Whole Foods - although I'm sure they have it at Paulina Meat Market). If you are going to make this (and you should! immediately!), a spicier, fattier pork sausage will give your soup more flavor and heft than the chicken. I also substituted 5 color swiss chard for the spinach, and the pink veins against the bright greens and the orange of the sweet potatoes makes an absolutely gorgeous soup. I made this for Joshua and two of my friends and the overall consensus is that I will be making it again as soon as I can get my dry chapped hands on all the ingredients.
Soup #5 was really a white chicken chili that we threw together at home last night with our friend Jessica, who does not have a blog. (AND SHE NEEDS ONE. It can be about baking! getting married! so many things!) Jessica has been making white chicken chili for awhile now, and last year it even caused sort of a brawl when some of us (me!) did not really get as much as they wanted and others of us tried to take more than the allotted share. We made it last night on the stove, but I think it's even better in a crockpot when it can simmer all day. We loosely followed this recipe, and we added another can of beans and a can of diced tomatoes, along with leftover leeks I had sitting in the fridge. It was the perfect dinner to have on the first night that I really paid attention to the effects of daylight savings time, since it felt like we were eating at 9pm and really we had everything on the table at the ridiculously geriatric hour of 6pm. Sad!
I am looking for more good soup recipes so if you have any, please share! We will be returning to the previously mentioned topics of Christmas presents and compost shortly. (Like, after I have finished a very lengthy case study and care plan and learned how to administer blood products). Mmm...what a delightful way to end this post.
We have made soup five (5! like the days I missed of NaBloPoMo! how ironic!) times recently, starting with winter squash soup which came from allrecipes, although now I can't find the exact one I used. It was a little blah, I can't lie. I know it involved butternut and acorn squash, along with sage, cumin, cayenne, and cinnamon. I really needed to ramp up the spiciness, but I was a little afraid of the flavor combination. One of my friends came over later that night and threw in a lot more of all the spices, then declared it amazing. So...I will need to rethink my hesitation there. Also, she is the last person I expected to dive into my fridge and eagerly pull out squash soup, so this has the potential to be a winner.
Soup #2 came Straight From The Farm, one of the many food blogs I read to a level of near-obsession. Roasted rosemary potato leek soup is as amazing as it sounds, although I am not a very careful measurer, and I overdid it on the rosemary a little. Next time I would add more leeks and tone down the rosemary to balance out the flavors. And if you are not really into soup, this can be just a great recipe for rosemary roasted potatoes.
Soup #3 was created out of a need to finish off a chicken that Joshua and I had picked up at the farmer's market and then roasted Ina Garten style (lemons stuffed in the cavity, over some yellow onions that just char as the chicken cooks...um, she is my hero. The recipe is from her book Barefoot in Paris, one of my favorites). I shredded the leftover lemon-y roasted chicken into our crockpot with chicken broth, chopped up onions, green beans, frozen corn, and peruvian blue potatoes. Comfort food. No recipe needed. (It was really good, but not that pretty. Especially don't make it with blue potatoes if you want to impress your friends)
Soup #4, a triumph, came from Deb at SmittenKitchen.If you are not reading her blog (daily) you should be. This sweet potato and sausage soup is one of the best things I have ever made, even though I substituted chicken chorizo for linguica (a Portuguese sausage I could not find, even at Whole Foods - although I'm sure they have it at Paulina Meat Market). If you are going to make this (and you should! immediately!), a spicier, fattier pork sausage will give your soup more flavor and heft than the chicken. I also substituted 5 color swiss chard for the spinach, and the pink veins against the bright greens and the orange of the sweet potatoes makes an absolutely gorgeous soup. I made this for Joshua and two of my friends and the overall consensus is that I will be making it again as soon as I can get my dry chapped hands on all the ingredients.
Soup #5 was really a white chicken chili that we threw together at home last night with our friend Jessica, who does not have a blog. (AND SHE NEEDS ONE. It can be about baking! getting married! so many things!) Jessica has been making white chicken chili for awhile now, and last year it even caused sort of a brawl when some of us (me!) did not really get as much as they wanted and others of us tried to take more than the allotted share. We made it last night on the stove, but I think it's even better in a crockpot when it can simmer all day. We loosely followed this recipe, and we added another can of beans and a can of diced tomatoes, along with leftover leeks I had sitting in the fridge. It was the perfect dinner to have on the first night that I really paid attention to the effects of daylight savings time, since it felt like we were eating at 9pm and really we had everything on the table at the ridiculously geriatric hour of 6pm. Sad!
I am looking for more good soup recipes so if you have any, please share! We will be returning to the previously mentioned topics of Christmas presents and compost shortly. (Like, after I have finished a very lengthy case study and care plan and learned how to administer blood products). Mmm...what a delightful way to end this post.
05 November 2007
So I decided to sign up for NaBloPoMo today, of course, because today is 5 days after the starting date of November 1st. This is the story of my life as a blogger. Excellent intentions, poor follow through.
I really have nothing to post about right now because I am very busy measuring off 0.4mm squares on EKG strips to determine if hypothetical patients are having SA exit block or sinus arrest. In the meantime I am reviewing exciting topics like mitral stenosis and dilated cardiomyopathy and also I watched a full episode of Dancing With the Stars for the first time ever.
If you thought I would put in the effort to link either medical terms or shows on ABC with their appropriate websites, you can think again. I am the one starting 30 days of blogging 5 days late. I am also the one reviewing my notes for a quiz tomorrow who just discovered an entire power point handout that I forgot about and am now kicking myself because I have about 6 more topics to cover before my 7:30am quiz.
I am really excited about 25 days of blogging though! I have dedicated approximately 30 seconds of thought to what I will possibly be writing about this month (details of my daily life clearly are not that interesting. please see above) and I have come up with two potential topics - Christmas presents and compost.
It will clearly be a thrilling month.
I really have nothing to post about right now because I am very busy measuring off 0.4mm squares on EKG strips to determine if hypothetical patients are having SA exit block or sinus arrest. In the meantime I am reviewing exciting topics like mitral stenosis and dilated cardiomyopathy and also I watched a full episode of Dancing With the Stars for the first time ever.
If you thought I would put in the effort to link either medical terms or shows on ABC with their appropriate websites, you can think again. I am the one starting 30 days of blogging 5 days late. I am also the one reviewing my notes for a quiz tomorrow who just discovered an entire power point handout that I forgot about and am now kicking myself because I have about 6 more topics to cover before my 7:30am quiz.
I am really excited about 25 days of blogging though! I have dedicated approximately 30 seconds of thought to what I will possibly be writing about this month (details of my daily life clearly are not that interesting. please see above) and I have come up with two potential topics - Christmas presents and compost.
It will clearly be a thrilling month.
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