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!