Welcoming in 2008

Christmas has come and gone. A fabulous time was had by all here in the Tylee-Silberfein household. My family made the drive down from Seattle, and I invited some friends over. We ended up preparing Christmas dinner for 12, which was actually a lot of fun. My camera batteries were dead, however, so Marcy took all the photos. Once they complete their 1300 mile drive home and she has time to send me pictures, I'll be sure to post them.

Today I was able to leave work early, and started to put away some of the Christmas decor. We had hung our Christmas cards on ribbon around the living room, and had gotten quite a few this year, from Adam's friends and mine. It seemed a shame to throw them all away, and then I remembered something we had done when I was younger. You cut out interesting parts of the cards:Then paste them on squares of colorful paper, attach a ribbon, and voila! Gift tags for next year:

I also finished some hats for the nieblings. Jester hat for C, and cable knit for B. I hope they fit.

Finally, I want you all to meet Gilbert Glugg, the latest member of our family. He's a calico goldfish, and he certainly has something of an attitude:

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Years. Here's to 2008!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

Those nifty stocking hangers I found on-sale at JoAnn's certainly helped with the stocking hanging! We are all set for Christmas. No traveling for us this year, since I'm on wards and only get one day off per week. I'm on-call Christmas Eve, which people seem to think won't be too bad, because really, who wants to come to the ER on Christmas Eve? We'll see. My lovely family has decided to make the trip down here, so we will be hosting the Tylee Family Christmas this year. Complete with ham, which only Adam, Dad and I will be eating since I somehow belong to a family of vegetarians. They clearly do not understand the wonderfulness that is bacon. Mmm... bacon... Christmas dinner will be a group effort, given that I'm likely working until 1 pm on Christmas Day. I'm making the dough for the rolls tonight. Adam is responsible for the appetizers, mashed potatoes and apple pie. The fam is responsible for their non-beef, non-pork, non-chicken entree. Dad will be making the famous corn su-full. I'll throw together some veggies (maple roasted carrots and green beans with shallots) after we finish opening presents. And after my disappointment last year with the cranberry shortage, I stocked up on cranberries earlier this year, so even though they are no longer available in any grocery store anywhere, I can make my fabulous cranberry nut bread.

In other news, we have designed our save the date cards for the wedding. I just have to print them up and we'll send them out after the new year. Not much else going on on the wedding front. We're in that period of down time before the craziness of last minute planning happens. Fellowship applications are done. It seems endocrine has joined the match this year, which means I don't find out until June 18th where I'm going for fellowship, and similar to match day for residency, I have no choice in the matter. I've gotten a few interview offers so far: OHSU, Colorado, the NIH and UCSD. I haven't scheduled anything though. I'll get around to it after the holiday, and once I'm done with the wards.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

Loose ends

Friday I go back to the wards. I'm on call the first night. And also on Christmas Eve. I think it will be nice to be busy again, but I've really enjoyed having all this free time. I've started a lot of different projects; since my mind hasn't been occupied with saving lives, I've found other things to keep me busy. Today I tried to get some of those other things finished:

Christmas cards and Christmas wrapping: the cards are done, and the first package is being mailed off tomorrow. Since I ended up doing all my Christmas shopping via amazon.com this year, I'm still waiting for all those packages. They ended up shipping my last order in 5 different shipments.


Stockings: I made these years ago, but figure since Adam is in it for the long haul, he deserved to have his name on one.

Wedding stuff: we should be getting the save the dates out after the new year. We found a wonderful blog by someone in Seattle, and they will be providing the art work. I would show you what they will look like, but I'd like to maintain some element of surprise.

Knitting: I'm still trying to catch up with the baby knitting. The latest niebling arrived Monday, but his gift still isn't done. Plus I want to make hats for the older ones. Don't know if that will happen by Christmas, but I'm trying!

And a few other organizational projects (recipes, decorating, convincing Adam that it will be fun to go to Macy's and register for pots and towels) but all in all, things are going well. I can't wait for Christmas. The family is coming down here, so even though I have to work, I still get to celebrate because I can put them all to work cooking my ham and whatever the vegan-vegetarian-non beef or pork eating side of the family wants for dinner. And the corn souffle. Yum!

Christmas Shopping

I am done. And without having to set foot in a single store. I used to love Christmas shopping, the festive decorations, the Christmas music, the egg nog lattes. But that has lost it's magic. Christmas is still my favorite holiday, but more because of the tradition, and the wonderful memories I have of Christmases past. I'm not a religious person, and Christmas has never been a religious holiday for me. It's always about family, and finding ways to show those around you how much you care about them, and enjoying time together. I've always enjoyed getting gifts for people. I love the challenge of finding the perfect gift. And I find the internet makes this that much easier. Not only can you search for exactly what you want, without having to go from store to store and wait in line after line, but there are so many unique and wonderful things to be found on the internet. I have a few favorite places to do my shopping, so if you are still looking, check these sites out:

amazon.com--yes, you all know and love them. I am quite pleased, everything I've ordered through them this year has arrived in less than 3 days! With free super-saver shipping!

mightygoods.com--a lovely person finds fabulous things on the internet and tells you where to find them. I love this site. She also has mightyjunior.com, just for kids

etsy.com--a collection of extremely talented people who makes things and sell them to you. I love the idea behind this site. There are so many artistic and gifted people out there who make fabulous things, and here they have a chance to sell their arts to us.

Tonight is the start of the holiday parties. Adam's company party tonight, department of medicine party next week, and one of Adam's friends is having a holiday cocktail party next weekend. Fun fun fun!

I have a problem.

I actually have many problems, but most of them aren't worth discussing here. One that is, is my problem with clutter. Now most of you don't live with me, so you may or may not be aware of this problem. I am not the neatest person in the world. I tend to leave things in piles. I try to make them organized piles, but nonetheless, if you follow me around the house on any given day you will see the piles I leave behind. Knitting in one pile. My mail neatly stacked in various locations. And in the bedroom, piles of clothing from the last few days. Somehow actually putting it in the hamper requires too much effort. Dear lord, I am lazy. Anyway, so this is all problematic, but mainly for Adam, since he's the one who has to deal with these piles on a daily basis. What is problematic for me is when I do not have my piles. While these piles may appear to be clutter to the outside eye, for me, this is my way of organizing. I need order in my life. I become paralyzed, unable to accomplish anything if I am lacking in order. I have been known to reorganize my yarn stash repeatedly because I can't take it all in unless I have it sorted in some logical fashion (initially by color, but that didn't work for me, so now it is by yarn weight). Recently though I have been paralyzed by the lack of organization when it comes to cooking.

I love to cook, and I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I get recipes from various sources: cookbooks, magazines, the internet. My problem is how to organize these recipes. I make something good, and then I forget where I found the recipe. It gets lost, never to be made again. There is no order to my recipe collection, and as a result, I find it very difficult to cook on a daily basis. I hate going to the grocery store, because without having n idea of what I'm going to cook, I have no idea what to buy. So I need help. How best to keep track of my recipes? I need a good list of basic things that I can have ingredients on hand for, so I don't have to research recipes everytime I want to cook dinner. And I need a place to keep those more elaborate, but so good it will be worth making again at some point recipes so they don't get lost forever. I also need some way to keep track of all of those things I want to make. And I don't want to use the computer for this. I need a good old fashioned recipe box. Or something. Any ideas?

Hat Update

I have a nasty cold, which means I had plenty of time for knitting while lying on the couch all day yesterday. First, the slouchy hat:

Not sure what I think of this. I can't decide if I like the stitch pattern or not. Perhpas I should have gone with your normal everyday stockinette stitch? Another yarn maybe? Thoughts, Emily?

And a made to order baby hat, for Adam's latest nephew/neice (or as I have dubbed them--niebling, you know, like sibling):

It's probably a bit too big for a newborn, but having little to no knowledge of newborn heads, it's really the best I could do. Cute, isn't it?

And we're done.

This concludes NaBloPoMo. We will be returning you to your regularly scheduled (by that I mean sporadic) programming. And what do you have to look forward to?
Christmas! Adam and I will be hosting the Tylee clan for Christmas dinner.
Wedding planning! I know you all love hearing about wedding planning.
Babies! So many babies (not mine, don't worry, that is still years off). And I'm knitting things for all of them.
Interviews! Fellowship applications go live as of tomorrow. I plan to return to my blogging roots with those.

Can't wait, can you?

The final stretch

Only 2 days of NaBloPoMo left. I had something interesting to write about today, but I'm too tired. So I give you global warming, as the cause of everything. Enjoy.

Ask and you shall receive

Emily wanted a slouchy hat.
She asked me to make her one.
After a little online research, a test swatch, and a trip to the local yarn shop I have cast on.
I give you Le Slouch (in its very early form):
And my super fabulous margaritas. Everything is more fun with margaritas.
1 part lime juice (always my limiting factor)
1 part triple sec
2 parts tequila
a splash of lime syrup

mix well and pour over ice. yum.

Wedding Planning

With only the invitations and the details of decorating left, we've been focusing our efforts on the honeymoon. We initially thought we would go to Alaska. But we keep thinking we should do something more exotic. We've tossed around lots of ideas: Tahiti, Cook Islands, Norway, Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Phillipines, Japan, Croatia and Turkey. I was initally pushing for Thailand until we realized it would be the rainy season in August. Last night Adam came up with the winner however... Peru. We've spent the last day trying to figure out how to use frequent flyer miles in order to get a business class ticket to Lima, but despite our multiple miles on multiple airlines, we've been unsuccessful so far. The closest we could get is a ticket on LAN Chile, but that could only get us to Lima. No way home.

So we'll keep trying. Apparently seats can open up at anytime, so we'll call the Alaska Airlines ticket desk every day until we can get the flights we want. Or until they get so sick of us, they just find seats for us so we will stop calling. And now my favorite part of any vacation... planning! I love planning vacations. It is almost more fun than the vacation itself. Almost.

Shopping

I worked all night last night and today decided to go shopping instead of napping. Here is what I learned:
- go to the mall on Monday afternoon. Easy parking, and no people
- then realize that there is no reason to be at the mall, because they don't have any of the things you want anyway
- go home, put on your pj's, turn on the tv and shop online

Ah Christmas. Such a wonderful time of the year.

Doctoring

I'm working today, on call, covering for one of my colleagues. And
it's a beautiful day outside, so I'm a bit disappointed to be here. I
would so much rather be at the beach, reading a book and absorbing the
sunshine. But what can you do...

I almost turned on the heat last night, it has been getting chilly
here once the sun goes down. Instead I put on 2 sweaters and my
slippers. Hopefully that's as far as it will go. Once I have to put on
a hat or mittens while in-doors, the heat must go on.

That's all I've got. Do not fear, NaBloPoMo is almost over. Then it
will be back to my occasional, rather than daily posting. Not that I
can promise that will be any more interesting.

Adam-Free Dining

I do miss Adam when he is out of town, but I love the freedom I have when it comes to dinner.

Tonight's meal would never have happened if Adam had been here, for so many reasons:

1. it involved pumpkin (and cinnamon)

2. breakfast for dinner (and yet he has no trouble eating dinner for breakfast...)

3. blurs the line between wholesome meal and dessert

But for me, all three make the most perfect meal. I give you pumpkin waffles with fresh whipped cream and maple syrup. Yum.

The Limits of Blogging

I only wish I could blog smells. Right now I am making onion soup and baking homemade rolls. It smells fabulously wonderful in here. And the pictures just don't do it justice, given the horrible job my camera does with indoor lighting.

Another lazy day. In addition to doing my part to ensure that the middle cushion on our couch has a permanent impression of my butt, I cleaned the downstairs of our house thoroughly. It sparkles. I went running. And I made things!

The aforementioned onion soup and rolls, which I enjoyed making so much, I am now inspired to make Christmas dinner for my family this year (make is an exageration--I'll likely order a ham from Whole Foods, but given my family's various dietary restrictions, I'm guessing I'll be the only one eating it). While dinner was tasty, I do have to say, vegetarian French onion soup is lacking a bit. I miss that beef stock-y goodness. I also missed the cheese, but I don't have any oven-proof bowls so wouldn't be able to broil the cheese anyway (this, Adam, is why oven-proof everyday dishes are important!):And I started a new baby blanket to repalce the disasterous one:Tomorrow and Sunday I have to work. Tomorrow should be a short day, but I have to take overnight call on Sunday. Ah well, the "vacation" was good while it lasted.

Happy Turkey Day!

I didn't get called into work today (yay!), so I'll be spending the day with friends. This morning I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and my new favorite Thanksgiving Day tradition--the National Dog Show! It's like a menu of dogs, you look at the various breeds, and figure out which ones you would like. I had decided I want a flat-coated retriever. It's a lovely dog.

In addition to my extensive television watching this morning, I'm going to make some sort of vegetable for today's Thanksgiving dinner. I was going to make the traditional Tylee Family corn souffle (pronounced soo-full) but I didn't motivate to get the jiffy corn muffin mix and there is no way I'm braving the grocery store now, so we'll have to save it for Christmas. I'm also experimenting with bread making. I was intrigued by this recipe for rolls, no kneading!, so I'm giving it a shot. I think they will go nicely with the onion soup I'm going to try to make tomorrow. I love lazy weekends.

Thanksgiving, the prelude

Tonight Adam heads off to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving with the family. I am stuck in San Diego, not working, but I'm on-call if anyone gets sick. So I must be able to get to the hospital within an hour. I will hopefully not get called in and get to spend the day with friends, but you never know what illness is lurking (or which of my fellow residents will decide they don't want to work on Thanksgiving and feign illness). I will miss having Adam around for the next few days, but I view this as an opportunity to eat the things I truly love that he can't stand. Like anything with olives. Or bleu cheese. Or pumpkin. Mmmm... I'm already dreaming of the pumpkin waffles I'm going to make myself for breakfast this weekend. And I have a whole list of recipes to try out during this long weekend. Should be a lovely time.

Cooking

I cooked dinner tonight, a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. This one was great, a one pot meal, that didn't require much in the way of grocery shopping, tasted fabulous, will make excellent leftovers, and both Adam and his brother liked it. I love cooking. I wish I had more time for it. There are times when I wish I didn't have to work. I would spend each morning drinking my coffee, doing a crossword puzzle (I do miss my New York Times crossword puzzle), go for a jog. Then come home and plan menus for the week. I would do my grocery shopping in the middle of the day, when the stores are less crowded. I could then spend all the time in the world preparing some fabulous meal. Complete with vegetables and side dishes. Of course, in this fantasy world I would have every kitchen appliance and gadget imaginable and tons of counter-space. I would also have a maid who came once a week, so I never had to worry about cleaning the bathroom or folding laundry, my two most hated chores. I could just cook. And we'd have a dog. In my fantasy world we have a black lab named Millie.

It's love.

Yes, google pages and I are in love. At least I'm in love with them. I can only hope the feelings are mutual. I think I will be moving our wedding webpage. Let me know what you think. The address is a bit cumbersome, but in this day and age of bookmarks and blog readers, do you think that matters much?

The new and improved wedding website.

My Love Affair With Google

I love google. We were first introduced with the search engine. I was initially attracted to its simple appearance. But our relationship really took off with I met gmail. I loved how it grouped conversations. I love that all of my old messages are saved. I love the ability to type in a key word and it will find whatever old message I'm looking for. Gmail and I are tight. Then there are the relatively new kids on the block, goog-411 and google SMS services. Free 411! I can get any info I want via text message. Movie times! Directions! Weather! Flight info! We're in the honeymoon period, you know where you get all dreamy eyed and smile that goofy grin whenever you talk about them. We haven't gotten to the point where we recognize each other's flaws, but give us time. I'm sure we'll have a few disagreements along the way. Today I met the latest member of the google family. Google pages. We've just met, but the inital chemistry is definitely there. I like what it does, I like what it has to offer. This could just be the inital attraction you have with any first date. I don't know if our relationship will progress to the same level that gmail and I have together, but there is definitely potential. We'll be spending some quality time together this week. I'll keep you posted on how things go.

No Longer a Spring Chicken

We went to a going away part of one of Adam's friends last night at the Altitude, an outdoor bar on the roof of a hotel downtown. It was fun, hanging out with some of Adam's friends and enjoying some lovely gin and tonics. A few more gin and tonics that I probably should have enjoyed. I had a prophylactic grilled cheese sandwich and some ibuprofen before going to bed, so actually didn't feel to badly this morning. I'm just exhausted. Sundays are depressing, especially when you are slightly hung-over. I'm so much less productive when hungover. It's a wonder I accomplished anything in my early 20's.

Cars

Life was simple before I took my car in for its 60,000 mile tune-up. I was pretty happy to find a dealer that would do it fore less than $300. Until I got the phone call telling me my car was ready, but they had a few "recommended services."

My clutch is on its last legs. Sad, but I knew this day would come. I did learn to drive manual on this car, so the clutch took a lot of abuse that first year. The estimate? $1000. So much for my contribution to the wedding fund this month...

If that weren't enough, he had a few more things to recommend. Somehow I bent the rim of my right rear tire, badly enough that it is pressing on the tire and causing damage to the tire. This is apparently dangerous, so I gave in and agreed to replacing the wheel and the two rear tires (even though one is perfectly fine... I guess you have to replace them in pairs). AND! Adam had to get me a new battery a few months ago, but he was sold the wrong size. So now I need to see if the auto supply shop will replace it with the correct size, otherwise I'll have to buy a new battery.

I think cars are more trouble than they are worth. We actually contemplated buying a new car instead of fixing this one (which is a story for another post!) but I think at this point we've decided just to fix the old one. Anyone know how to find a good mechanic?

Friday

Currently Adam is in the kitchen conducting a science experiment. In case you were wondering, yes, sugar does melt if you suspend it above a candle. And it smells pretty nice too. Yes, I am out of things to talk about.

My New Favorite Thing

Tastespotting
Beautiful food.
Makes me want to stay home and cook all day.

NaBloPoMo Day 14

I'm running out of things to say. I'm not sure that I agree with this blog entry every day thing. I feel I am cheating you, all 3 of my loyal readers. "Crap," you say. "I just wasted 20 seconds of my life reading that drivel?" Yes. Yes, you did. Move on.

Today I give you this:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/select_a_candidate/
Figure out who to vote for. I apparently agree most with Chris Dodd (who I had never heard of before), but all the other democrats were close behind. I'm such a good liberal. Not so close behind were Rudy and Ron Paul (who makes me think of a drag queen everytime I hear his name).

So Old.

Today I turn 32. Yes, I am old. Thirty-one didn't really phase me. I mostly thought it was funny, because I just didn't believe it myself. But now that I am 32, I am starting to feel old. Perhaps it is the lack of excitement surrounding my birthday. Birthdays were the highlight of my year in elementary school. It meant you got to bring cupcakes to school and you were the center of attention for 15 minutes that afternoon. You got to have a party where all your friends came over and brought you gifts. And more cake. In high school, there weren't anymore presents, but you still got to hang out with all your friends, you were the center of attention for the day, and of course, cake. For awhile, as an adult, I still would celebrate with friends. One morning my friends at school all woke me up at 7 am and took me out to breakfast before class. My 30th birthday was fabulous. Adam and Michelle conspired to take me on a scavenger hunt throughout Seattle, culminating at my favorite restaurant where all my friends and family were waiting. And a cake. While birthdays are still nice, I get phone calls from my family and Adam always does something nice, it's much less magical. It's just another day. I hope there is birthday cake at least. I do still look forward to the birthday cake.

Oh Dear.

This is the last thing I need. Offer me the opportunity to organize, and I will spend every free moment doing just that. But combine organization with knitting? And it's all over.

I'm back!

I had a great time in the O.C. this weekend. It was great hanging out with my friends from college. We're all at that same place in our lives where we're trying to figure out what's next now that we've done all those things we were supposed to: gone to college, gotten jobs, gotten married. Kids? Careers? Both? We'll figure it out. We are after all, intellegent, successful women.

Pictures from Disneyland and our night out in Fullerton to follow.
Now it's nap-time, as I'm just not as able to recover from a night of drinking as I once was. The sad part is I had all of 3.5 drinks over the course of 6 hours last night and am still feeling it. Ah to be young again!

Let's play a game...

We'll call it "What is Tracy doing right now in Disneyland?". It will be fun. It's around 8. I think she just arrived at the theme park with her college friends and is wondering where she can get the biggest Mickey & Minnie themed Americano she can find. It's early you see, and the ladies were up reminiscing about the annual Homecoming bonfire, and singing the fight song until the wee hours of the night. And now it's early. And they are at Disneyland. And they really, really need their coffee. Maybe a Winnie the Pooh shaped scone to share too. A little breakfast will take the edge off of the crowds and the strollers and all of the parents stuck walking the fake dogs on a leash after their kids have tired of them. Not that Tracy is down on Disneyland. She's just a little tired from the night before. Perhaps they should have gone to sleep a little earlier, instead of singing that last chorus of the fight song.

What will Tracy and her friends do after they've had their morning treat? Will it be the Tea Cups? The Small World? The daunting Space Mountain? Pictures with Snow White? Tell me your guess, and Tracy can catch us up tomorrow. Comments are open!

Bye for now. Emily (Secret Agent Blog)

Happy Friday!

I'm headed to LA for a weekend with my college friends, so in the interest of beating Friday traffic, I took the day off work. It's been awhile since my schedule has offered the flexibility for this, and it is nice having time to get stuff done. I have to wash my car and clean the bathrooms and then I'm leaving, hopefully to be on the road by 2 pm.

Emily will be guest blogging for me on Saturday, coming to you live from the Wallingford Tully's. Enjoy, and I'll be back Sunday! Aren't you loving this NaBloPoMo daily posting?

The good, the bad and the ugly

the good: I bought this fabulous yarn months ago, Manos del Uruguay. It's handspun, and comes in a million beautiful colors. I've been looking for a good project worthy of this yarn. And I found it here. I used double strands, one of each color, and it turned out quite lovely if I do say so myself.

the bad: I didn't knit a swatch before making the hat, and it is too small. So either I need to reknit it on bigger needles, or I need to find an 8 year old who'd like a nice wool hat.

the ugly: the striped baby blanket. It's done. It sucks. I'm sad. So I'm going to rip it out and make an entire wardrobe of baby clothers out of the yarn. Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

The Good

Since yesterday's entry detailed what I missed about Seattle, I
figured San Diego deserved to hear what it is I like about being here.
It will never quite live up to home. There's something about that
place you call home, the sentimentality of it, that leads you to see
all the good, and forget the bad. You idealize it and maybe you forget
that there were some parts that you didn't like, some things that this
new place has, that you actually like. San Diego is a pretty nice
place to spend a few years.
1. I love driving here. The freeways are fabulous. If I ever get stuck
in traffic, it is for about 5 minutes between where I get on the
freeway in La Jolla and the cut off for the 52. That's it. The rest of
the time, I get to drive 70. For those not familiar with Seattle
traffic, there I would get excited about driving 40. Woo hoo! Speed!
2. I love the beach. I don't spend as much time there as I should, but
sitting on the sand, listening to the waves, reading my trashy
magazines--there is something in the salt air that is so relaxing.
3. the Farmers Market. I have told of my love affair with produce
before, but it bears repeating. I will miss the fresh produce if I
ever leave here. It makes it so easy for me to eat the way I would
like to, with fresh local produce, eating what is in season.
4. Outdoor malls. The novelty of shopping outdoors still hasn't worn off.
5. Knitting. While the yarn stores here leave a bit to be desire, I do
enjoy my knitting. I have my Monday knitting group which makes me
happy. While I am the only one in the group without a child (I pride
myself on being the one outsider who has stuck around) I never feel
left out of the conversation. They are all very interesting women, who
I never would have met otherwise. I look forward to that each week.
Partly because of the fabulous bread pudding they make at the coffee
shop where we meet, but mainly because of the company.
6. Peets. My favorite coffee. There's one on the way to both
hospitals. So I can always get my fix.
So I am happy here, I just miss home.

This is California?

If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was in Seattle right now.
Looking out the window, we have typical Seattle November weather.
Cloudy. Cool. Damp. It might even be raining, I can't tell from this
angle. The only difference is I know this is temporary. San Diego will
be sunny again. Seattle however, will continue to exist in its gloomy
winter dampness. But you know what? I really miss that gloomy winter
dampness. I miss the snow in the mountains. I miss dark rainy
afternoons, curled up on the couch with a good book (or my knitting).
I miss Christmas shopping downtown. I miss rainy days running between
stores at University Village. I miss Wallingford and Fremont and
Ballard and their neighborhood shops. I miss good yarn stores. I miss
my friends. I've been working on my fellowship applications all day,
trying to figure out what I need to say to convince the people at
University of Washington to take me. I'm so homesick, I don't even
really like being a doctor right now. I'm sure I will survive the next
20 months, but it would be much easier to make it through if I knew I
got to go back to Seattle after all of this. I miss home.

Pictures of Death Valley

As promised, here are the pictures. Sand dunes are very photogenic. The pictures do not do justice to the vastness of the park. It is so hard to convey how much barren space there was here. It was incredible. You should all go someday. Especially if you are old and drive an RV. You will have lots of company.

HIghs and Lows

The destination of this weekend's mystery road trip... Death Valley. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was beautiful. Vast swaths of nothingness between two mountain ranges, salt flats, sand dunes and some amazing sunsets. Saturday we drove up along the east side of the Sierras and hit the high point of the journey: Mt. Whitney, highest point in the lower 48:We camped in Death Valley that night and then next morning explored sand dunes:

Played on the salt flats:
And hit the journey's low point: Badwater Basin, lowest point in North America and 282 feet below sea level:

Road trips are exhausting, so I'm off to bed. I'll post the rest of the pictures tomorrow after I've had time to look at them all and make sure no one is doing anything obscene in them.

Road Trip

Free weekend and we are going exploring. I don't know where, we are getting in the car and heading northeast. I have been promised coffee before we leave town, so I am up for the adventure.

I'm Hooked

I worked a half day today (it being Friday and the post-doc I work with needing to go drink beer and all), and while at home I was searching Netflix for something to watch while I sorted through my mail and yes, knitted (I'm down to one project at a time, I think that is progress). Netflix has a nice feature akin to on demand movies on cable. They have a selection of movies dubbed "watch instantly." For every dollar you spend on your monthly membership, you get one hour of online movie watching. Searching through the listings, I saw they had the season one DVD of Heroes. Little did I know...

Seven hours later, after using up all my allotted hours, and hacking into Adam's Netflix account to steal some of his hours, I'm two episodes away from the end. I had no idea what I was missing out on, not having a TV for the last year and a half. This is where Adam accuses me of being a couch potato and threatens to take the TV away. I'll have you know, I multi-tasked. While watching TV and knitting, I sorted through my mail, read medical journals and wrote my personal statement for my fellowship applications. All while sitting on the *floor* which I think disqualifies me from couch potato-dom. I also took a break to go running. Couch potatoes most definitely do not go running.

Using Technology to My Advantage

I'm a bit slow to jump on the technology bandwagon. I don't do text messaging. It takes me too long to type with my thumbs. If I have something to say, it's much faster to just dial the darn phone. Over the weekend however, I discovered some of the wonderful things google is doing with cell phones. I'm already a loyal user of goog-411, google's free version of 411. You can get addresses, phone numbers, look up entire catagories of businesses if you don't remember the name of the place you are looking for. So when Adam and I were trying to go to a movie on Sunday (I pulled a typical Dr. Jones maneuver and got my times and theaters mixed up so we ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time). Being without the internet, I didn't know how to figure out where we were supposed to be. Adam (or rather Adam's brother) saved the day... text "google" with the name of the movie you want to see, and the city or zip code where you want to see it and voila! You get a return text with the theaters and times where the movie is playing. I love it!

And this is my first attempt to blog via email. Success?

They're back!!

Damn egg nog lattes. Guess it's time to finally schedule those trainer sessions at the gym...

In other news, it is NaBloPoMo (aka national blog posting month). While I'm fairly certain I will fail to post every day in November (largely due to the fact that I will be out of town next weekend), I'm always up for a challenge. Especially if there are prizes involved!

Dress shopping

I went wedding dress shopping with Kate and Emily back in September when I was in Seattle, thinking it would be fun to go with those two (what isn't fun with those two?). I also figured I'd do my *real* dress shopping in San Diego, given that I actually live in San Diego. I didn't actually expect to find THE dress on the first day of shopping. In Seattle. So the last 6 weeks have been a quest to find the same dress here in San Diego. How hard could that be? Very, as I have discovered. Bridal shops only carry certain lines of dresses, and for whatever reason no shop in San Diego carries the line that I was looking for. I was on the verge of a road trip to Santa Ana before I finally found a shop that would special order the dress for me. It was a little disconcerting handing over my $$$, being told repeatedly that there are no refunds, and then being told that I shouldn't expect to see my dress before April. But it really is the perfect dress, and once you find the perfect dress, no amount of shopping will find one that could take its place. If you are not Adam, and would like to see the dress, email me and I will send you the link (of a model wearing the dress, not me--did you know these things are copyrighted and they won't let you take pictures until you have actually purchased the dress?).

Pathologic Knitter

I think my knitting is beoming an illness. I cannot stop. I'm at work, and all I can think about is coming home and knitting. I'm at the gym, and I can't wait to get off the damn treadmill and come home and knit. That is of course assuming I even made it to the gym, and didn't get so caught up in my knitting that I just didn't leave the house. I can't sit on the couch without knitting. Poor Adam is poked in the side with needles while we are watching movies together. I've decided the problem is my inability to complete any one project before moving on to the next. All part of my ADD. Currently I have 9, yes NINE, uncompleted projects. And I'm working on all of them at once which is why I feel so compelled to knit at all times. My goal is to complete each of those projects by working on only one at a time, and then limit my knitting to Monday night knitting group. I need to reclaim my life.

The current projects (in order of almost completeness):

Pink baby sweater. Adam's sister is having a baby. We don't know if it will be a girl or a boy. This is the gift if it is a girl. It needs a button for the top, and then it is done.

Ivory baby sweater. This is the gift if it is a boy. This is the current bane of my existance. I hate finishing sweaters. See all those loose threads? I have to weave all of those in. I hate that. It needs edging, buttons and some cute little embellishments. I can't wait to see the finished product, but it's annoying me right now.

The Lizard Ridge afghan. This has been an ongoing project for almost a year now. I can't wait to finish it, although it's 100% wool and far too warm for actual use here in San Diego. Yet another reason I need to move back to the northwest. I'm very homesick right now.

A felted bag. I didn't buy enough yarn for this, so it is on hold until I come up with $30 to buy the rest of the yarn. Then it should be a quick finish, it's almost done. I don't know what I will do with it when it is done, it will depend on how big it is after felting.

Brown pullover sweater. This is from the book Fitted Knits, which I love because all of the sweaters are fitted, which is better than most frumpy sweater patterns that are out there. I started this in Austria, and it is a very fast knit. But I've realized, I don't wear pull over sweaters. So my motivation to finish this is waning.

Cream recycled cardiagan. This is the yarn I frogged from one of Adam's old sweaters. It's kind of a boring pattern, and I have more interesting things to work on right now, so it's been put aside until I run out of other projects. But as fall arrives (it's certainly not here yet) I may need a cardigan to wear around the house, so maybe I'll take it up again.

Multicolored baby hat. This is knit on tiny needles and takes forever to finish, and I don't even know if I like it. And again, look at all those loose ends! Finishing this will be hell. So I have hidden it in a drawer.

Baby blanket. Yet to be determined which baby will be the recipient of this. Depends on when I finish it, I suppose. Little needles, boring pattern. But I did enjoy making the little bear who sits in the pocket. I'll finish this eventually.

And finally, the black cardigan sweater that I've been waiting to start work on. I need a black cardigan sweater, and this is a very nice yarn. But I haven't yet gotten started. Someday perhaps...

Last fire post. I promise.

Things are returning to normal here, but the fires just keep going. The winds are due to change today or tomorrow, which means the fire is going to turn around and may reburn communities it has already burned. But the weather should cool off, and humidity should increase, so things should start to get better. It's still smokey here, and my allergies are horrible today. I found some great pictures online, better than anything I could take, so check out San Diego on fire:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sandiegofires/pool/show/
Some satellite images: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/socal_wildfires_oct07.html

Ah, they have decided to take a break from fire coverage for the World Series. Thank goodness, I needed a break from non-stop video of burning homes.

Fire! Fire!

Staying home isn't as much fun as it was when I was a kid. I just don't get the same enjoyment out of Price is Right. That's not even on today, because it is just fire coverage. So I ultimately plan to do something productive with my day, like cleaning, but meanwhile, I'm enjoying my coffee and watching the fire on TV. They were broadcasting live from the Harris Fire, down in Chula Vista. My grandparents live in Chula Vista. I remember visiting them when I was little and their house was on a canyon, nothing but canyon as far as you could see. They had coyotes and road runners in their backyard. Over the years, Chula Vista has been built up to where there are no longer canyon views from their home. Just housing developments as far as the eye can see. So luckily, they are now safely in the middle of Chula Vista, because it is the neighborhoods on the edges of communities or along open canyons that are burning. They were showing a wall of fire coming over the hill, headed straight for the housing development. The firefighters were just standing there, watching, because there was nothing they could do until the homes were in immediate danger. But luckily, when they built this neighborhood 4 years ago, they took fire danger into consideration and surrounded the neighborhood with what is called "defensible space." In this case, a 10 foot road next to a 6 foot trail. The fire burned right up to the road and the stopped. Neighborhood saved without a drop of water, just good planning.
Currently 300,000 acres are burning, they are estimating full containment of at least two of the fires by November 4th. Still only one fatality. Poor Tori Spelling had to evacuate her B&B in Fallbrook, so won't be able to film her reality TV show until this settles down (she was actually already in L.A. so didn't really have to evacuate). The California condor enclosure at the Wild Animal Park was destroyed, but they had already evacuated the condors since they are critically endangered animals. The rest of the animals are safe in their enclosures, as they have fire breaks and well irrigated land which should hold off any fire. What does it say about me that I'm more concerned about the condors than Tori Spelling?

Inferno

What started as two fires in east county, which we initially mistook for a BBQ, has now exploded into 7 separate fires which have consumed 160,000+ acres, over 500 homes and led to the evacution of 250,000 people in San Diego County. I've been watching the coverage on the news all day, and I don't think they've made any headway in controlling the fire. I was sent home from work today because the air quality is so bad they had to close the UCSD campus. They've evacuated nearby hospitals, so we are all on call for the next two days for "disaster backup." They have evacuated north San Diego neighborhoods. They've just evacuated parts of Del Mar, which is right near the ocean. They now have issued mandatory evacuations in east Chula Vista, where my grandparents live (but they are further west than the mandatory evacuation area). Horses have been evacuted to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which is now full with 0ver 1800 animals (including a zebra!). Qualcomm stadium has been set up as an evacuation center, where thousands of people have gone. The air is filled with smoke. I left my car parked outside for 3 hours this morning, and came back to find it covered in a light layer of ash. Freeways are closed. It is chaos, but very well organized chaos. They've been very good about evacuating people well ahead of the fire so people have plenty of time to get out. The news coverage has been excellent so everyone knows what is going on. And people are going out of their way to help others. People are opening their homes, donating the time and trailers and trucks to help people evacuate, people are bringing donations to the stadium to help out. It is better than other disasters, in that the main part of San Diego is really unaffected, so stores are still open and everything is still up and running if you get out of the areas directly affected by the fire. It's scary though, the fire just keeps advancing, the winds just keep blowing. Luckily, we are safely tucked into the middle of San Diego, well away from any canyons. We can't even feel the Santa Ana winds here. We just have to deal with this horrible air quality (which is actually better here than most places, since we are up on a hill). The weather (hot, dry and windy) is supposed to stick around until Wednesday. Tomorrow more firefighters are due to arrive, hopefully they will be able to get the planes up if the winds die down, and hopefully they'll start to make some headway.

So Cal Sunday

Today was the quintessential San Diego Sunday. I slept in, enjoying every one of those 11 hours. Then Adam and I walked down the street to the neighborhood farmer's market. I've said it before, and I will say it again, I love that we can get fresh produce all year long here. In addition to the local produce, they also have a number of vendors selling everything from homemade tamales to handmade hats. I got my morning coffee from the local coffee roasters, and we bought some fish, which we are told was just caught yesterday (except the salmon which he flies in from Alaska). Tonight Adam is grilling the Ahi tuna, and on Tuesday we will be trying the yellowtail (which I mistakenly believed was also tuna, but I have been informed it is in fact a *cousin* of the tuna). I also bought the most beautiful broccoli I have ever seen, tasty Fuji apples, and some lovely heirloom tomatoes which I made into a tomato salad tonight. Once I get my camera cable returned to me (I has been located. In Seattle) I will post pictures of my lovely salad.

After I made Adam his weekly blueberry muffins (I like to play housewife on Sundays), we headed out to the beach. It has been unseasonably warm the last day or so, thanks to the Santa Ana winds, so we took full advantage of the sun for a little surf side smash ball. I perused my wedding magazines, while Adam researched our honeymoon. We stopped for tacos on the way home.

Now we are watching the Red Sox. We thought one of our neighbors was BBQ'ing, because there is an aroma of smoke in the air, but it turns out 8000 acres of east county is on fire (one fire to the north, and one to the south of us) and the winds are carrying the smoke our way. The Santa Ana's do make for a lovely day at the beach, but they do not help with fire fighting efforts and things are just getting smokier here.

Weekend in the Desert

This weekend I'm at a conference in Palm Springs. I drove out today after work. I expected the trip to be all interstate, but I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the drive was two lane highway though the mountains with an amazing sunset. I probably would have enjoyed the drive more had there not been other drivers on my tail the entire time. I have trouble driving in the dark. I don't see well, and so I need to drive slower that I normally would. Apparently other people can see better, and thus are able to drive narrow two lane mountain roads in the dark at about 70 mph. But I survived unscathed. Palm Springs is an odd place. You drive for hours with nothing other than a few scattered Indain reservations, come down out of the mountains and there you have it--high end strip malls as far as the eye can see. Tomorrow I will spend the day exploring the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort while learning about various aspects of internal medicine. Yeah, sometimes what I do with my freetime is a little boring. Perhaps when I get back to San Diego Sunday, Adam and I will go flying. He's been wanting to that, and it would give me something more interesting to write about. :)

Finally...

...a day off! This last week was a long stretch. I worked 8 days without a day off. Which wouldn't be too bad, except during those 8 days I worked 115 hours. Needless to say, I had to skip out on the Cure cover band Adam had tickets for and I slept for 13 hours Saturday night. Sunday we went to Kobey's Swap Meet. I hadn't been to a swap meet since I was a kid and we used to go whenever we'd come to San Diego to visit Grandma and Grandpa. It was great, we went with the goal of getting some art work for our living room, and within 5 minutes we had found the perfect pictures. I was all set to use my bargaining skills to convince the guy to sell us both pictures for $5, but when I asked how much they were and he said $2 each, I must say I was actually disappointed as I handed over my $4. I would post pictures, but I have lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer, so my pictures are stuck on my camera for the time being. We also found some mixing bowls, a tape measurer, a grill brush and a fish bowl. I found a sleeper sofa that I think would be very nice in our guest room and I'm trying to convince Adam that it is a good idea. But it is hard to justify spending money on things while we are trying to pay for a wedding. Speaking of the wedding, we are making headway on the planning. We have a venue, a photographer and a band. We should have a caterer by the end of the week. And stay-tuned, the wedding website is in the works and will be unveiled once I have more than 3 entries on it.

This is my last week in the ICU. While I really enjoy working here, the call schedule is killing me. I spend a few hours a day at home, I miss Adam, and I am falling way behind in my knitting! There are babies being born, and I have at least 3 different baby gifts in the works. It would be nice to finish them before the kiddos arrive. As of Friday I have two months of research, which I am really excited about. I can't wait to get back in the lab, and it will be nice to have weekends free. The rest of this month looks to be pretty busy. I'm going to Palm Springs on Friday for a conference. I need to submit my licensing application. I need to finish my fellowship applications. I need to find a wedding dress. But I will get to sleep in my own bed every night. And I can turn my pager off for two whole months. Yay!

Losing Your Passport 101

Losing your passport in a foreign country, even one as welcoming as Austria, can be an upsetting experience--especially when travelling alone. So allow me to share with you my new gained knowledge regarding what to do when this happens to you:
1. Try to do this in a country where you speak the language. It can be very helpful when you are at the police station trying to tell them that you lost your passport, but no one there speaks English. Although there was a very nice elderly lady who was there as well, and did her best to help. The police officer would tell me something in German, I would say I didn't understand, and the very nice lady would look at me, and say *exactly the same thing* in the hopes that I would somehow understand it from her. I didn't, but it was sweet.
2. Try not to lose your passport at 4pm. Everything closes at 5pm. It makes for a very long night during which you can do very little to fix the situation.
3. Know how to contact the embassy. And then know that you probably need to go to the consulate, not the embassy. That way you don't waste your time going all the way across town to the embassy (which is a very scary, intimidating looking building) when you really need to be at the consulate, which is on the opposite side of town (and in the Marriott Hotel, a much more welcoming place).
4. In fact, call the consulate before going there. Hopefully someone will have found your passport, have called the consulate, and they will be able to tell you where it is. Saving you about 2 hours on public transportation.
4. Have a photocopy of your passport. It was very helpful in multiple steps of this process.
5. Don't panic. People are very nice. And is it really that bad being stuck on vacation for a few extra days?

So after 4 hours and a trip to the lost and found office, the embassy, the consulate, the Imperial Apartments and finally Schoenbrunn Park, I was reunited with my passport. I think I may turn into one of those dorky Americans who travel with their passport in a pouch around their necks. For details of my journey, please see the map below:

View Larger Map

Adventures in Austria

I'm back, and going back to work yesterday really wasn't too bad. I even got some sleep on call last night, and tomorrow is my day off. So I have time today to sort through the ridiculous pile of mail, do laundry, and update my blog with a lengthy report on my Vienna adventures.

After 3 days in East Tyrol (having a wonderful, relaxing time), I set off on my solo adventure to Vienna for a few days. Mom had helped me to find a cheap hotel in Vienna, which is no easy task! Thanks to Vienna's wonderful public transportation system, I found my way out to the Gasometer neighborhood and settled into my cheap, but clean and safe, hotel. First order of business--dinner. I went to the nearby Gasometer Center and decided to eat at the Bierometer. I sat at the bar, ordered a beer and "Bierometer toast" which ended up effectively being a deep fried ham and cheese sandwich. First Vienna mishap--the waiter made a mistake when charging my Visa, and instead of charging me 11 euros, he charged me 1,111 euros. I'm still working on getting that fixed, but hopefully Visa will take care of it.

Next day: lots of Vienna sights, and lots of Japanese tourists. Luckily I got to Schoenbrunn (the summer home of the Hapsburgs) early, so only had to wait 30 minutes to get in. It is a well-orchestrated affair. They time your entry to the minute, and give you audio guides, so they know how long it should take everyone to get through. It would be very nice, if it weren't for the damn tour groups. So many of them, they would fill an entire room. I eventually worked my way around them, and after walking through the park, I hopped on the subway and headed downtown. There I went to the Hapsburg's winter home, the Imperial Apartments and the Treasury. Vienna mishap number two: when I went to pay for my admission to the Treasury, I noticed I was missing 50 euros. Which given today's lousy exchange rate, was the equivalent of $70. I think I lost it at lunch, when I was trying to pay for my little sandwiches and I was being hurried along by the gentleman behind me, so I didn't have time to return all of my money to my purse. Alas, no souvenirs for me as I was on a strict budget. I was tired of walking at this point, and decided to stop for a coffee and apple strudel. While enjoying my coffee, I became aware of Vienna mishap #3--when I had gone through my bag at the Treasury, looking for my $50, I didn't recall seeing my passport. I believe I must have left it in my room at the hotel when cleaning out my bag the night before, so I scrap my plans to visit St. Stephen's cathedral and head back to the hotel.

And when I got there... no passport. It was gone. Have you ever found yourself in a foreign country without your passport? It is a very disconcerting feeling. And led to a significant change of plans on my part. Which I will tell you about later. I need to go take a nap. Here are the rest of my pictures from Austria. Enjoy!

Climb every mountain!

Lots of time in the mountains the past two days. Yesterday we drove up to Grossglockner, the tallest mountain in Austria. It was a very nice drive, and a wonderful overlook up at the top. Today we hiked around Hochstein, the local ski area where they have the women's world cup skiing. There are many, many hiking trails around here (the Austrians love to hike!) and some amazing views from up top.

I'll post the complete album once I'm back in San Diego. Ok, probably sometime after I'm back in San Diego since the day after I get home, I start on-call in the ICU. I really won't be much fun for the next month.

Vacation Continues

Greetings from Lienz! After a very uneventful 18 hours of travel, I have arrived at my mom's home in Lienz, Austria. This was perhaps the most pleasant flying experience I've had in a long time. Perhaps Adam is right, and Alaska is the problem, not the entire airline industry, because I had a lovely United flight. Somehow I got an "executive coach" seat, which meant lots of leg room! And they had a very nice snack. I had a 3 hour layover in DC, but that was ok because they had a Potbelly Sandwich place in the airport, so I happily ate my sandwich and waited comfortably for my next flight. And the flight to Munich? I *love* European airlines. They were so polite, and gave us lots of food and wine. And more wine. I also managed to get some sleep thanks to the neck pillow, eye mask and ear plugs I brought along with me.

And now, I'm in Austria. It's beautiful here. Hopefully the weather will hold, tomorrow we are planning on going to the mountains: Heiligenblut (Holy Blood) and Grossglockner (big bell clapper). We took the dogs for a walk this evening, so I leave you with pictures from that:

The valley where Lienz, my mom's village, lies

Wedding Planning

We've narrowed down the wedding to two possible venues with two very different feels. I know which way I'm leaning but so as not to bias my readers, I will keep my opinions to myself.
Option 1: Rays Boathouse--a very nice seafood restaurant on Puget Sound. The ceremony would be at a park up the hill, overlooking the sound and Olympic mountains. This would be a more traditional wedding reception. Pros: it is on the water, it's in Ballard (our favorite Seattle neighborhood), it comes with it's own wedding planner and the food is yummy. Cons: it's a little small and tucked in between two big restaurants and their associated parking lots.

Option 2: Fox Farm Lavender Farm on Vashon Island. A beautiful garden on a little island a short ferry ride from Seattle. Both ceremony and reception would be here. This would be a more casual, but still beautiful reception. Pros: beautiful flowers would require little additional decoration, big space, private and we get the place for the entire day. Cons: we have to arrange our own caterer and do the set up/tear down ourselves. Guests would also have to take a ferry to ceremony, which could be fun, but might be a hassle depending on people's opinions of ferries.

Here are photos:

I would love to hear opinons!

That would be an interesting road trip.

An on-going competition in the Tylee family--who will be first to visit all 50 states. I've been to 39 (forty if you count DC):
How many have you been to?
create your own visited states map
Can't quite figure out how to hit the remaining ones in one trip, other than a lovely jaunt around the periphery of Texas. If anyone is up for a little vacation to North Dakota, let me know!

Hot! Hot! Hot!

It is hot this weekend. Very hot. Ninety degrees upstairs. I'm hanging out downstairs trying to get some air moving through here, but we only have windows on the east facing side of our house, so you can't get any air movement. What does one do when you have the weekend off but it is too hot to move?

Adam took off for Sequoia National Park, but I had to stay in town as I'm on cross cover this weekend (I get called in if anyone gets sick). So I had a little party. I had some friends over, and we had a great time. We played a mean game of Monopoly (yes, I'm old and somewhat pathetic). I also made lemon meringue pie, but it was just to hot out--the lemon part wouldn't set. The meringue was good though.

Today I bought some wedding magazines. I'm really overwhelmed by all the planning that needs to be done. We still haven't picked a date or a venue (that's on the schedule for this weekend!), which really needs to happen before we do anything else since that is pretty much going to determine our budget. I am resistent to compromise on the venue (or food!) but am completely willing to cut corners on other elements in order to have my wedding where I want it to be (and I think Adam is on board with that plan!). To that point, I also purchased Bridal Bargains, which comes highly recommended. We'll just take it one step at a time, and I'm sure it will all come together sooner or later.

And knitting. What better way to spend your day when it is 90 degrees out, than playing with wool? Current projects:

Baby hat for a friend of Adam's:

It's hard to see without a good close up picture (and my camera just doesn't take good close ups), but it is a sample of various stitches. Once it is finished, it should look something like a jester hat.

Baby blanket for Adam's sister and their upcoming baby:

It looks poufy because I'm knitting it on circular needles. That's a pocket in the middle. Once I'm done (which hopefully will be soon, because quite honestly, this is a very boring project), I'll knit a little bear to stick in the pocket.

Progress on the Lizard Ridge Afghan:

My camera takes horrible pictures indoors. I can't figure out how to fix the lighting, so you can't quite get the full effect of the (almost!) completed afghan, but the close up gives a good look at what the individual squares look like.

Next week I'm off to Austria. It feels like this trip has been in the planning for so long, it's hard to believe I leave a week from Tuesday! I have several other knitting projects sitting in a box in the closet, which I'll probably take to Austria with me. It will give me something to do on the train to Vienna.

Fishing

I am on GI consults for the next two weeks. We are the ones you call when your patient is in the hospital and for whatever reason, needs a colonoscopy. Or, as was the case for the poor man we consulted on on Monday, you swallow your dentures and need emergent upper endoscopy. We (by we I mean our fellow and attending, I stood in the corner and watched) spent 90 minutes trying to fish the dentures out of this man's esophagus. I'm not sure how he got them down in the first place, because they were very poorly designed for passage through the GI tract. It was a partial, so there were two teeth on one side, with an acrylic bridge on the other side. There were two opposite facing metal hooks on either end to secure the thing in place. Unfortunately, the hooks were also perfectly positioned to snag on the mucosa as we tried to pull it up. We ended up pushing it down into the stomach and leaving it there for the surgeons to work their magic.

It's actually really cool stuff. If I didn't hate all of the body fluids involved in this specialty, and hadn't already committed myself to a life without overnight call or any emergencies, I'd be all about GI. It's like playing video games involving people's colons. Luckily for you all, there will be no pictures accompanying this post. But if you are really curious, try looking up "endoscopy foreign body removal" on google images. It's amazing what people will swallow.

Freedom!

For the first time in awhile, I had an entire weekend off. So I cleaned the house, and now can finally show off where Adam and I are living. After a few attempts at various furniture configurations, I give you the living room:

It's a nice living room, very bright and sunny. And yes, we finally bought a television. I've become a big fan of PBS in HDTV. This week I've learned about the building of the St. Louis arch, Mark Twain and traveling in Amsterdam. Gotta love public television.

Upstairs we have two rooms--the bedroom and Adam's office/my yarn and book storage room. And an interesting consequence of building a house on a hill, our garage. Enjoy a slide show of our lovely house:

In addition to cleaning, we visited the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla and attempted to attend a free concert downtown. The Flaming Lips were playing. The show was sponsored by Southern Comfort, and there was no charge for admission. We failed to predict that a free concert = lots and lots of people and ended up watching the early part of the show from the parking lot. Eventually though, enough people left that we were able to get in. Although a large part of the portion was the lead singer professing his distaste for the Bush administration, the music was good and certainly can't complain about free concert!

Today was more mellow. Laundry, grocery shopping and more PBS (today we are learning about Typhoid Mary). And next weekend? Adam wants to go flying.

Getting hitched!

After 3 years (and approximately 25 days), Adam proposed! He tried so hard to surprise me, and I tried so hard to let myself be surprised, but given my inherently suspicious nature, I made it very difficult for both of us.

He had been in Seattle the weekend before, so we hadn't seen each other for a few days. Monday morning was my day off, and before Adam left for work, he asked if I wanted to meet him for dinner. My suspicions were immeditately aroused, as Adam never asks me to go to dinner. I usually have to drag him kicking and screaming on anything resembling a date. To his credit, he always claims my cooking is so much better than anything we could get in a restaurant, so why should we go out? As the day progressed, I went about my errands. I was taking our recycling to the appropriate drop off site (can you believe we don't have curbside recycling? And given that it was ingrained upon us in Seattle to recycle anything and everything, we collect our recyclables in the garage for periodic trips to the recyling drop-off sites). I went to put something int he back seat, and found a bag with some of Adam's clothes in in. Since I had picked him up at the airport the night before, I initially thought he had just left it in my car last night. But that didn't make sense, why would he be carrying a change of clothes in an Ann Taylor bag? When I got home later that afternoon, I IM'd him, asking why his clothes were in my car. His reply: "I don't know what you are talking about." Now I knew he was up to something, but still didn't know what. But I decided to let him have his surprise, and I stopped asking questions.

That evening I met him at work, and we walked to a very nice seafood restaurant down the street: The Fishery. It was a very nice dinner, and afterwards we went for a walk along the beach taking in the sunset:

We continued onto a pier, where there is a hotel out over the water. As we were walking, Adam was telling me of his new plan: to be more romantic. As he told it, he had realized that he would never be able to do anything romantic without arousing my suspicions that he will be proposing. He had decided to be more romantic in order to catch me off gaurd when he did finally propose. It seemed reasonable to me, and at that point I decided whatever he was up to, he wasn't planning on proposing that night. We were walking back up the pier towards the car, when Adam turned towards one of the hotel cottages. "Where are you going?" I asked, "you can't in there!" as he walked through the gate marked "PRIVATE." "Yes we can," he said. "We are staying here tonight." I reacted in a way that I'm sure Adam was not expecting (or was expecting I guess, given my dislike of surprises): "What are you talking about? I can't stay here! I need to be at work at 7am!" Eventually however, he was able to convince me to stay.

As I looked around our cottage I saw a small box sitting on the bed. I opened it, and found the perfect ring:

Adam asked, I said yes, and there you have it. We're getting married!

Randomness

I'm 3 days into my new role as "resident" and I'm exhausted. We have 14 in-patients that our team is responsible for (a team consistes of two interns, one resident and one attending, plus a couple 3rd year medical students and one 4th year medical student). The patients are divided up between the interns who are responsible for the day to day care of the patients--making sure the right tests are ordered, following up on results, calling all the consult teams to help us out. I supervise the interns, make sure that everything we have discussed gets done, and I help come up with management plans. The attending basically makes sure we don't kill anyone. But my interns had the weekend off, so I had to do everything for the last two days. Plus I was sick yesterday so was not really functioning at 100% (more like 25%). But today is my day off, and so far I'm enjoying it. Coffee, knitting, KEXP.

Interesting (perhaps) things occuring in my life currently, which you may hear more about at later dates:
1. getting my medical license. I passed all 3 steps of the licensing exam! Now I get to fill out a 22 page application and pay $900 and will soon have the ability to write prescriptions.
2. applying for fellowships. I want to be an endocrinologist when I grow up. And I want to go back to Seattle.
3. vacation! I'm off to Austria in about 6 weeks for a 10 jaunt through East Tyrol and Vienna.
4. Yosemite. Potentially--I have 4 days off before I leave for Austria, so Adam and I might take a little road trip.
5. knitting. I have about 6 works in progress. I keep hoping to get all my knitting crap organized, but it's just not happening.
6. Books. I need recommendations for what to read now that I have finished Harry Potter.

That's my life. I like it.

La-La Land

Saturday morning Adam and I headed off to LA for a day of history and music. After several hours touring the Nixon Libaray in Yorba Linda (interestingly enough the Watergate exhibit was "closed for renovations"), we then headed off to the Hollywood Bowl for a concert with the Decemberists. The Hollywood Bowl is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater up in the Hollywood Hills. They let you bring in your own food and bevs (including alcohol!) so we had a lovely picnic up there prior to the show.

The show itself was fabulous. The Decemberists are doing a series of shows on this tour with orchestras, and last night they played with the LA Philharmonic. While there were a few times when the orchestra overpowered the band a bit, it was a great show. I got some pretty bad pictures of the event, but I'll post them anyway:

The amphitheater. If you had the ability to magnify the picture, you'd see the HOLLYWOOD sign up there in the right middle, on that distant hill.

This is a picture of the audience after the band asked everyone to pull out their cell phones and wave them around as if they were waving around lighters. The effect was pretty cool (or silly as Adam put it) but the picture doesn't really capture it. I think the band was having as much, if not more, fun as everyone at the show.

UPDATE: someone got video of the cell phone thing. It's actually the entire encore, when they seemed to be having a great deal of fun. Cell phone thing is about 4 minutes in.

A few You Tube links to songs from the show (I did take some video but it's not worth trying to figure out how to get it online because it's just not that good):




Plus more at You Tube