Relaxing

There are times when doctoring isn't the horrible time consuming adventure it can be. Like this month. Right now I'm on rheumatology consults, which is actually very interesting. We have clinic 3 half days per week, and the rest of the time is spent seeing in-patient consults. However, there aren't many in-patient consults right now, so I've been hanging out at home in the mornings, working on presentations, doing reading, and playing with the puppy. I only live 5 minutes from the hospital, so the fellow pages me if I need to see someone and I can go in. It's definitely a nice change of pace.

So I'm trying to take advantage of this down-time to get my life in order. It seems like I'm always trying to get something in order. I don't know what I would do if I had nothing to organize. I think a part of me thrives on disorder. It gives me a purpose. In addition to organizing my life, we have some travel coming up. We're going to Connecticut in a few weeks for our east coast wedding reception, then I'm going to Seattle in March for a girls' weekend with Kate and Emily. After that I'm back in the ICU for a month, but then the home stretch... I can't wait to head back home again.

I leave you with random pictures and links:

My most recent socks, comepleted.

Wylie's online photo album on PicasaWeb:

Puppies

Adam's birthday, documented on the other website
My favorite recipe of the week: "fried" chicken
Enjoy!

Time to Spare

For those of you keeping track, I have approximately 4 1/2 months of residency left. I am now in the midst of a fairly easy stretch. For the last two weeks, I was on a dermatology rotation. Of the 10 possible days there could be clinics, I worked 5 of those days and I don't think I worked a full 8 hours on any of those days. Now I am on rheumatology consults for the next two weeks. Again, I was home by 2 pm today which was lovely. The rest of the year is hit and miss, with a week of the ED, and week of nights at the VA, a month of ICU, but interspersed with those rotations are more dermatology! More consults! And lots more weekends!

So today when I got home at 2 pm I thought I would take advantage of that spare time and make something exciting for dinner. But I was not very inspired. I went through my files of "recipes to try" and found some turkey burgers from Cooking Light (after the weekend of eating with Kate and Ben we will be on a Cooking Light kick for awhile). But they were going to take all of 20 minutes to make. I needed something more exciting! More involved! That's when I remembered the cookbook Kat got me for Christmas: Montana Cooking, and its recipe for homemade hamburger buns. Yes, I spent 20 minutes making turkey burgers and rather than just picking up some hamburger buns while at the grocery store, I spent 4 hours making my own. They were ok. I still have problems with my bread (it just isn't light and fluffy) but it was fun. When we move back to Seattle however, we're going to need to get a chest freezer because I have filled up our little freezer here with rolls, pizza dough, chili, chicken stock, turkey stock, waffles and now hamburger buns.

Which brings me to the main point of this long-winded post about cooking. I like to find recipes all over the place. My cookbook collection. Cooks Illustrated. Cooking Light. Bon Appetite. Food blogs. Tastespotting. More food blogs. And I save them, until I try them. If they are good, they go into my permanent collection. When I got married, Kate requested a copy of my recipes as a bridesmaid gift. So I searched and searched for a good way to put them all together in cookbook format and I found this. I love it. I made cookbooks for all the bridesmaids and sisters-in-law. I still add new recipes and figured out that I can share my recipe collection on-line. If they want the new recipes to add to their cookbooks, they can order them. And if they have recipes of their own they want to share, they can set up a Tastebook of their own. I'm working on getting my recipes updated, then I'll be sending the link to all the original recipients. If you are interested in seeing what makes the cut with me, let me know and I'll send along the link. Just a warning, I enjoy using cream, butter and cheese. Things taste better that way. If you're worried about calories, just eat less.

Time for bed. We've finally tired Wylie out. Here's hoping he sleeps past 6 am!

Updates

New posts up on the other blog.
Wylie!
Tylees!

Neglect

I have not meant to neglect my blog. I have many things to tell you about and a camera full of pictures from a fabulous long-weekend with my siblings. But house guests and constant puppy vigilance have kept me very busy, so the pictures are still on the camera and I need to go to bed.

I leave you with Wylie and his newly discovered vices:

Sleeping around:

And drinking:

And him, just being cute:

Later this week... Disneyland with the Tylee clan and hanging out with Kate and Ben and the always enjoyable train game (aka Ticket to Ride).

Knitting, Again.

I'm sure you are all wondering, where are the puppy pictures? I'll get around to posting those on the other blog. I'm working on moving everything over there. Adam has given me permission to write about knitting and cooking and doctoring over there. And I just like the look of wordpress better, so eventually I will be retiring Free Time. Once I get the puppy pictures up over there, I will let you all know. Until then, more knitting. I'm loving sock knitting. It is so much more fun than anything I've ever knit before and the only thing I've ever knit for myself (other than mittens) that I will actually wear!

Starting the "falling leaf" socks

One sock, finished and blocked

Close up of the "leaf" detail

Sock, on my foot

I have the day off today, so Wylie and I are hanging out. He's sleeping, I'm trying to catch up on all my "to do" list items. It's supposed to be 80 degrees today, which is just so wrong in January. I went running this morning, but it was a terrible run. I only made it about half the distance I had planned to go. I'd like to say it was too hot, but I don't think I can blame 70 degree weather for my inability to run more than 2 miles. I was going to make soup for dinner, to try to finish off all the leftover turkey broth I have in my freezer, but soup is not really what you want to be eating when it's 80 degrees out. Kate and Ben are coming to visit this weekend (yay!) and we're going to Disneyland (yay again!). It's going to be nice have weekends again.

Happy 2009!

Hope everyone has enjoyed the first two days of 2009. I almost made it until midnight on NYE, but I'm old, so I made Adam come home and go to bed at 11:30 pm. And then I had to work on the 1st. I was hoping to get out early, but given the unpredictable nature of my job, two of our patients ended up needing to be transfered to the ICU, so that kept me busy most of the day. Today was my (much needed) day off. I only have another week of this rotation, two more call nights, and then life should be better for a few months at least. Adam and I are getting ready for the puppy, who we are picking up on January 10th, although we are still debating names for the pup. And today I have decided I'm going to knit nothing but socks from here on. They are so much fun to knit, and perfect for me. They have complicated patterns, they only take about a week to make, they have a very basic structure so I can make them without a pattern and they are actually practical and something I will wear. Here are the finished Christmas socks:

Lovely, aren't they? And very soft and warm. I'm now working on a pair for me--different pattern, and green, but I'm very excited about them. Sure, I will still knit the occasional baby hat, and I do have three sweaters in various states of completion that I will get around to finishing eventually, but this sock knitting thing--I can't believe it took me this long to try socks!