Puppy Love

I know I have blogged about the Daily Puppy before. But I had to share a few cuties today. I want one or two of these absolutely beautiful puppies and some day when I can afford a proper dog walker and have a back yard for a four legged friend to run around in I will get one. But for now a girl can dream.

Take me home and snuggle me please!

Pho King

Today when I woke up I felt a real hankering for some piping hot soup. Lucky for me, we live across the street from the Pho King. If you are into saying words in their correct cultural manner then you realize how funny the name of this restaurant is. Pho is really pronounced Fa. The other amazingly odd thing about the Pho King is that the owner also owns an adult video store next door to the Pho King. We ventured in there one cold day looking to rent Lord of the Rings. There were some other titles available with the words lord and ring involved but none of them were up our alley. Despite the questionable moral character of the Pho King, the owner knows how to whip up some tasty tasty soup. I tend to stick with the chicken pho. The broth is amazing with mildly sweet notes. And how can you not love a bowl full of noodles, slender slices of chicken, bean sprouts, cilantro, onions and Thai basil. Kevin loves the brisket and flank steak pho. He likes to add a few good spoons of Thai hot sauce to his soup. I of course avoid this at all cost. If you are in need of a good stick to your ribs, soul warming meal I recommend finding your way to the best Pho shop in town. Or you could always come visit our Pho King and maybe make a trip to the Adult Video next door if  that is the sort of thing you are into.

Here are some snaps of my lovely Pho lunch!

You know you want some!

Scrub Caps

In one hour there will be 20 days until the Match! On 3/17/11 I will find out with the rest of the soon to be MDs where I will spend the next four years training. Although I would be surprised to end up anywhere but in DC anything goes in the match. Since I have been working super odd hours in the ER for the past month I cannot tell which end of the day is morning. I have been distracting myself by dreaming of c-sections, new babies and of course scrub caps. Blue Sky has tons of super cute scrub caps. I especially love the Pixie cotton caps. I am looking forward to moving up in the world from the disposable blue caps to a stylish cotton one!

Here are some of the cute prints.

Planned Parenthood

If you know me at all you know that women's health and reproductive rights are a big deal for me. I think it is extremely important to preserve the resources we have to ensure that women get the health care they need. There have been serious attacks on women's health and one of my favorite organizations, Planned Parenthood in the past weeks. Regardless of your politics we all have a responsibility to educate ourselves about what Planned Parenthood does for our communities and learn more about women's health services.

http://saveplannedparenthood.webs.com/

Another fantastic resource.  So, do your homework understand the research behind your point of view and get your voice out there.

Smoothies

There has been chat in the blogosphere about smoothies. Lizzy blogged about green goodness last week on Puddin' Pie. PW my favorite Oklahoma based food blogger wrote about fruit smoothies for breakfast. Well, after reading all about these tasty concoctions and knowing that for the past month my fruit and vegetable consumption has been subpar I though I would try to whip up my own tasty creation. I had one tiny, insignificant, little issue... I do not own a blender. I do however own a mini food processor. No problem I thought, same deal, steel blade, rotating center mechanism, same end product right. Not right! Although the end product tasted great, Kevin slurped his right down, I am still trying to choke the rest of mine down. Because the blade on my food processor is designed to chop onions, garlic, tomatoes etc it made a smoothie full of fruit skin. Yep chunks of oddly textured fruit skin in an otherwise tasty treat. Now, I am well aware that this fruit skin is good for me and I usually have no problem eating it on whole fruit, but gobs of it in a drink is not really my idea of tasty. My afternoon activity might include a trip to Target to find a blender so that when I have my next urge to blend some vitamin and antioxidant rich goodness I can actually drink it. UGH!

Here is what I threw into the mix today.

handful of green grapes
handful of strawberries
handfull of blueberries
handfull of fresh basil
1 container 0% Greek Yogurt
Splash of skim milk
5-7 cubes of ice

I turned that little bugger on with great hopes of fruit filled goodness what I got was a sad semi-blended mixture with chunks of unblended ice and the fruit skin. The texture is just off!

A not so smooth smoothie.

In other news I only have two more ER shifts left both overnights and my very last patient last night was a cutie pie who was only 20 months old. I could have tucked him into my white coat and run away with him, fever and all.

The Smell of Spring

When I woke up today, sadly only three hours after I went to sleep, I awoke to one of the best smells in the world...SPRING! It is a perfect temperature here in Del Ray today. There is something so restorative about spring, something so energizing and fresh. I set out in search of signs of spring around the neighborhood.

I found this little guy trying to poke on through the mulch.

The last of the snow!

Fresh buds

Tomorrow it is going to be 72 in DC. I cannot wait!!! Who needs sleep when there is sunshine and fresh air to be had! Happy Spring!

Sleep

I have always been an early to bed, early to rise kind of girl. One of my biggest fears about starting medical school four years ago was that I wouldn't be able to stay awake to study or work. I hate being up past midnight unless there is a really really good reason and I hate sleeping past 8 AM. Well, I am now onto a string of nights in the ER and let me just tell you it is messing with my sleep schedule big time. Sleeping during the day is not good for anyone. Your hormone levels that drive sleep are all off and the sun is out and making it hard to get good quality sleep. We have serious blackout curtains in our room and I am now a firm believer in the benefits of some sleep aids for needed day sleeping but I still hate it. Take this week for example. I worked overnight got home at 8:45 AM, went to sleep by 9:30 AM and had to get up to be back at the hospital at 5PM for the 5P-1A shift. Then I had to be there at 7:30 AM for trauma grand rounds this morning until 9AM then home to sleep until I couldn't force it any more because I am headed back for another 11 PM to 8AM shift tonight.

Working nights will be part of my life forever. The only good thing about my chosen profession is night float, blocks of nights so at least you can fully switch to day sleeping for a while before you switch back. This flip-flopping is what kills you. Only about a week and a half left of living like a semi-vampire. I cannot wait to have my nights back for sleeping. I am dreaming of sweet sleep in the dark, dinners at a normal time and my regular breakfast schedule. It is 5 PM and I am about to have my first cup of coffee of the day. Oh mornings I miss waking up to you.

Rise and Shine!

Hey Baby, I think I'm gonna marry you!

Flowers

I have some beautiful flowers from my birthday and from Valentine's day. Even though I spent 15 of the 24 hours of Valentine's day in the ER and another 6 sleeping I came home at 2 am to find some beautiful roses from my Valentine. There was nothing better I could have walked in the door to see.

And some Birthday flowers from Will, Maranatha and baby Richard

e-love!

I have raved before about Paperless Post. My friend Liz who has a great stationary company, Linda and Harriett designs cards for Paperless. Here are some of her super cute Valentine's. It is not too late to send some e-love to your favorites. Happy Valentine's Day!

Be Mine!

It is almost Valentine's Day. As a child Valentine's Day was about candy, cheap cards to give to classmates at school and chocolate! I love February because it is the month of my birthday and because there is Valentine's day. As I have gotten older the meaning of Valentine's Day has changed from nights out with best girlfriends to dates with boys to now low key tokens of love with my forever person. This Valentine's Day I will be spending the evening in the ER, hopefully not mending too many broken hearts, sorry for the cheesy pun. Although I am a firm believer in the idea that we should tell those we love that we love them everyday, Valentine's Day is just a simple excuse to find an extra treat and a fun card for your favorite people. I have been struggling this year to come up with a creative not super expensive treat for Kevin, after all it is more about the idea and the thought than the value. Any ideas?

Here are some cute love inspired ideas from around the web. What are you doing for Valentine's Day?

Thanks Martha Stewart for the cute Valentine's inspiration and of course Love Actually (best Christmas Movie/Love Stories ever!)

Wishing you lots of love and a day full of sweet things on Monday!

House Hunting!

As we get closer to the big day, March 17th when we find out if we stay or if we go (hopefully not too far away) we have been looking at houses. This task is fun on some levels - dreaming about the future home, think of all the fun decorating it and making it "our home." On the other hand it is extremely frustrating. There seems to be plenty of cute houses on the market but they are SO SO SO expensive. For comparison I have been looking at houses in my home town. I fully understand the sad state of the Detroit economy and many houses for sale there are priced below their true worth I am sure but for goodness sake we are talking a 400,000+ difference in the cost of a two to three bedroom house when comparing Alexandria, VA and say Bloomfield Hills, MI. Do you know what $400,000 can buy you? Well, it can buy you just about four years of medical education or 100,000 lattes from Starbucks which just might be enough to get you through those four years of medical school. Here are some examples of what you can buy for $400,000 or more in some of the locations we could potentially be come June.

Cute Right? Well this little guy is $550,000

This cutie in Michigan is a whole $90,000 yep just a little more than one year of medical school 

Now if only we could transport all the things we love about Washington, DC to suburban Michigan we would be all set! I am keeping my fingers crossed for a big power ball win (even though I do not even play) or better yet winning the HGTV Dream Home. Did you enter yet?

Avocados and Guac!

Friends:

I am not sure if you know about my love of all things avocado but my love for these beautiful green sources of heart healthy fat runs deep, almost as deep as my love for scallops, red wine, good cheese and my friends and family of course. Avocado in anything makes it so much better. Sushi, better with avocado, salad, so much better with avocado, a sandwich yep same thing. And then there is the mother of all things avocado - guacamole! In my very first apartment in Georgetown, when I first graduated from college one of my best friends and fellow foodie Thea came to visit from Michigan and taught me how to make my very own guacamole. We walked up to Dean and Deluca in Georgetown to obtain the needed ingredients. I have been making guacamole regularly ever since then. Last week, after a 90 minute soul drenching hot yoga class, Molly and I were in the very same Dean and Deluca when she had a craving for some guac. I was honored to share the technique I learned from miss Thea years earlier. Well, tonight I whipped up my old standard.

Here is my recipe:
2-4 avocados depending on how much of the green goodness you want to make
2-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
1 small onion diced
2 medium tomatoes diced
Juice of 1 lime
1 bunch cilantro chopped
1-2 jalapenos seeded and diced
1-2 tsp salt to taste

Throw it all into a bowl, use a potato masher to squish it up, grab your favorite chips and enjoy. Maybe if you are feeling nice you will have some left for your favorite family members.

Imported From Detroit

If you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday you may have seen this commercial about Detroit. Detroit sure has had some rough times in the past few years and things for many are still tough but I loved that Chrysler decided to feature Detroit as its selling point! Maybe someday Detroit will return to its glory - the glory my beloved Grandmother used to tell me about, a city where people walked around downtown, where the city center was a destination not a place to be avoided.

Birthday love!

To celebrate last night we had some friends over for two of my favorite things: wine and cheese! It was so nice to celebrate with good friends and I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate! Here are some of the pictures!

Cake Love Cupcakes!

29 years ago today!

Wedding Preview

Although we are still at least a year away from our wedding and some key things have not been decided, most importantly where the wedding will take place, and when the big event will take place, I have wasted no time organizing, planning and compiling a folder of ideas. I might have the details figured out well before we actually set up the structure of the event. Lucky for me, I have a mother with many talents, some of her best are in the kitchen. When I was a child I wasn't much interested in backing or cooking but I sure did love me some Texas Sheet Cake, some apple pie and of course some chocolate chip cookies. This year for Christmas Kevin and I got my mom a new fancy Kitchen Aid mixer to replace her 30 year old one. I know she was so glad to have a well working machine again but I sure do have fond memories of licking the beaters of that old guy. I am pretty sure that to this day eating spoonfuls of cookie dough is my favorite part of baking. Well, now that my mom's kitchen is fully equipped I plan on putting her right to work helping me with wedding favors. I am not sure she knows this yet but she will have her hands full, baking and jaring the summer before our wedding. Here are some cute samples of favors. I cannot wait to design our own labels for Sal's tasty creations but I know our guests will be super glad they didn't get a boring tin of Jordan almonds. I cannot wait to actually see all of my ideas become actual items once the fun starts! Thanks Mom!

Thanks Green Wedding Shoes for the great ideas and pictures!

Notes from the ER

I started a month of shifts in the emergency department today. As I rode the train into work this morning, I looked around me at all of the people heading to work, and wondered who of the millions of people sharing a perfectly fine morning commute, would find their way into the ER and into my care. Kevin calls this a baseline of badness which exists every day. Every day someone out there is going to have a heart attack. Every day someone is going to cut their finger and need stitches, some one is going to bang their head at the gym and need stitches, someone is going to break a bone in their foot playing soccer. Although, I am 100% sure that I have no aspirations to be an ER doc, it is sort of fun to play one for a month. The thing about the ER is that you take care of everyone: old, young, rich, poor. It had been a while since I had the majority of the responsibility for caring for patients, coming up with my own evaluation, making my own diagnosis, ordering my own tests and I was worried for the first five minutes that I might have forgotten everything but somewhere tucked in the depths of my brain are millions of facts about random illnesses, and the experience of seeing hundreds of patients before today and somehow it all comes back. No mater how many months ago it was that I last took care of cute little two year old or how many months it has been since I last saw a big bad eye infection. It is amazing how our memories work, one look at a patient and all of this knowledge pops into my head. I might have forgotten the dose of Augmentin to use or the first line choice of IV antibiotics for pneumonia but those are the things you can easily look up. The best way to examine a two year old, all the tricks learned along the way about how to look in their ears with out making them scream, those things are the more important stuff that you cannot easily look up on a smart phone. My first shift in the ER while exhausting and dehydrating was fun. It was fun to not know what was coming in the door, to be surprised at what the patient's real agenda was for coming to the ER. And I left, feet tired, needing a drink of water and a trip to the bathroom for the first time since the morning, but I felt I helped patients, stitches were placed and removed, pregnancy was averted, mothers were calmed, antibiotics were started and we sent them on their way reassured that they would get better. While I do not wish anyone a trip to the ER, I hope that if you go you have a good experience. Martha Stewart recently blogged about her own trip to the ER check it out here.

Beef Stew

Nothing tastes better on a cold night than a piping hot bowl of soup. Tonight I made a different version of beef stew. It was tasty and hearty and the perfect way to end the day. Here is the recipe.

1 lb grass fed stew meat cut into 1 inch cubes
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
4-5 large carrots
1- 28 oz can of whole tomatoes
1 box of beef broth (less sodium if you can find it and watch out for MSG)
1 bag frozen peas
4-5 medium yellow potatoes in 1 inch chunks
1 tbs caraway seeds
1 tbs paprika
1 tbs chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy stock pot, heat the oil and then add the beef cubes in a single layer. Toss in plenty of salt and pepper with the beef. Cook until browned on all sides about 10 minutes. While the beef is browning chop up your veggies. Add the garlic, onions and carrots, caraway seeds, paprika and chili powder to the beef once it is browned. Simmer until the veggies are starting to soften about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juices and mash them up a bit with some tongs as you add them. Add the beef broth and potatoes and bring the whole thing to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and continue cooking, stirring occasionally for about 2 hours or until the potatoes and beef are very tender. Add the peas (defrosted) about 10 minutes before serving. Tastes great with a nice hunk of rye bread and a dark beer. I am sure this would work very well in a slow cooker too, I just do not have one.

Stay warm!