Sometimes I just need a break. Most people don’t consider running a break. Running is my alone time. Even after being at the hospital all day, it’s dark, it’s 30 degrees, ice mans snow on the ground. When I lace my shoes up, have my lab doing dances around me because he knows which shoes are my running shoes, and sometimes I don’t even need music. The road, my dog, and outside is all I need. It’s no joke: running and running shoes are cheaper than therapy.
The last six months have been a whirlwind of change and good things for the future. I was fortunate enough to secure a spot as a PGY-1 Obstetrics and Gynecology resident in Oklahoma this past February. This was a difficult year for the match and I feel very blessed and fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue the career path I have fallen in love with over the past two years.
After Match Day, my husband and I started the journey of first time home purchasing. Finally after three long months we are finally getting settled into our new home and our new city. Whoever said that buying a home was fun lied. The first weekend of looking at homes was fun and then watching homes being put under contract the day we put an offer on one was a bit heartbreaking and emotional. Don’t get connected to a house until the closing date has come and gone is my advice.
Finally adding a new addition to our family has been an experience. We added a silver labrador to our family in March. He went on my last rotation with me, traveled with us on our house hunting experience, and has finally started to get cozy in his new home. He probably wondered for awhile if we had one house that we were going to live in. His name is “Doc”. He was my graduation present to myself which is also a good amount of my life commitment. He is healthy and fun. We have managed to keep him alive since we got him. Here is hoping he is raised to be a great hunting dog and running partner. My instagram account has become a documentation of his life. He is loved and the closest thing we are going to have to a child for quite some time.
Graduation is happening soon. I will add the title of Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine to my name. Lots of life changes. All for the better. Hopefully I will have more interesting things to write about.
The Match is 5 days away. As I sit here and wait on patients to show up there are a million things that are going through my head right now. Everything from what’s going to be for dinner, where are we going to be living once we figure out where I match, why is this week going by so slow, how many miles am I going to run tonight, why are first weeks of rotations so awkward, I need to go grocery shopping, etc. I’m sure that drives my point home.
I can’t seem to focus long enough to read more than one or two pages in my endocrinology book. This stuff is pretty interesting too.
I feel that this picture is pretty representative of my life right now. This coat hanger has so much potential. I’m sure will hold many coats in its future and stay in the wall for many years to come. Unfortunately right now it is sitting in a brand new office waiting for someone to pick it, someone to need it to hold their coat, right now it’s just two screws hanging out of the back of a panel.
All of this snow and cold weather that Oklahoma and the rest of the nation seem to be getting is a significant amount of snow, sleet, ice, and just freezing cold temperatures. Is it really that different than any other winter. Last year Oklahoma had a warmer than usual winter, but then the summer was a bit milder than normal also. We have not had a significantly cold winter in quite a few years. This has caused so many schools to be closed, businesses to be closed, and things to be rescheduled. I do not remember ever getting out of school for snow, rain, or cold temperatures. Am I just imagining this?
Even with all this complaining that I am doing I still like winter. It gives me a reason to wear warm cozy clothing. It has made me second guess training for a spring marathon. Oh runners problems. Hopefully this moisture will stop by this afternoon because running seven miles on a treadmill does not sound to exciting to me. I can put on all my winter running gear and hit the trail. That is one thing that is definitely a priority here in Tulsa. The trails are always cleared. As I was pulling into my neighborhood the Tulsa Trails workers were out clearing the trails, pushing the ice and snow off to the side. They were also clearing the damage to a pole and tree in the middle of a trail from a car that decided it looked like a good place to park this morning.
I wish I were on a ski slope somewhere. Seven weeks left of rotations, maybe I can get a ski trip in at the end of rotations? Maybe, maybe not. One can only wish. Six more weeks of winter, according to that groundhog.
You do not ever see it when you are a teenager or young adult. I do not think parents even actually see it. I have slowly begun to notice how much children reflect their parents. Some of my friends have children. Some of them do not. I am starting to be in the age group where some of the children are newborns, some are toddlers, preschoolers, and some are pre-teens. Their minds are being molded everyday by things that they do at home, things their parents do, things their friends do, and experiences that they have.
One of my friends has the two dearest children. Yesterday the regular babysitter was not available and I happen to be having lunch with her. I immediately volunteered to hang out with the kids so that her and her husband could keep their plans. These two girls are phenomenal.
L is six years old. We have met multiple times. I have been to their house for game night. I have dog sat for them. I have even been sailing with them. Every time I am over at the house or with the family somewhere silly L takes some time to warm up to me and then by the end of the night she would prefer I just stay or would like to know when the next time she is going to see me. Last night L was particularly hilarious. She finally came into the living room to accompany E and I, but she hid under her pillows most of the night. While watching the “Princess Bride” every time someone held hands, looked lovingly into each others eyes, or heaven forbid KISSED, L would yell “EWWWWW, that is SO GROSS!” or “why do they need to kiss?” “Are they in LOVE?” All of these exclamations cracked me up. I am pretty sure E just sat on the couch and rolled her eyes are her little sister. I love the spirit and personality of L. She is so joyful and precious with a little bit of attitude.
Now I know it has been almost 20 years since I was 11 years old, but the conversations I had with E last night or anytime I have been with the family just astonish me. She is so well spoken and intelligent. Plus she has the sweet innocent beauty that an 11 year old is suppose to still have. She is such a positive roll model for her little sister and reflects her mother’s and father’s values so well. Her and I sat at the dinner table and discussed her “Revolutionary Day” at school that she had the opportunity to participate in yesterday. She remembered so much of what had happened that day. She told me all about the doctors and other interpreters for the revolutionary war days. She even wanted to know about my day. After dinner we picked out a movie to watch. TV time is a rare occurrence is this family, so they were excited but you could also tell the girls were tired from their day so we were looking for a nice movie. I was glad I could teach E something even though not a useful life skill. Showing her how to search for movies on UVERSE on Demand. The movie was a kid friendly love story, “The Princess Diaries.” The movie was such a good love story and a sweet kid movie. E wanted to make sure I enjoyed it as much as she did. Again what a wonderful girl. The girls were ready to find a game to play, but the parents came home right as the movie was ending. Bedtime.
These girls are such a beautiful reflection of their parents. I am so glad that I get to be a part of their lives. I am interested to watch them grow and see the people they become.
Do parents ever know the impression they make on their children. The impression it leaves on others.
I hope one day the impression my future children leave on people is a beautiful reflection of their family and the values they are raised with.
Oh by the way, happy Chinese New Year!
Do you have a favorite musical?
I love going to plays, musicals, and ballets. I grew up getting to attend the occasional musical or ballet. I was in quite a few musicals at church and enjoyed attending the musicals that were produced by our high school drama class. I have every word to every song and every line of The Sound of Music not just memorized but I know it by heart. Mary Poppins is pretty great too. If you can’t tell I am a big Disney fan, but I love all things on the stage.
Tulsa is fortunate enough to have some big Broadway shows come to the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. I was fortunate enough to be given tickets to the performance of “Chicago” last night. I have never seen the movie so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The show last night was excellent: full of music, singing, dancing, a good plot, and just fun. All the performers were amazing and I am so fortunate that I was able to go. When I leave the PAC after attending one of these great shows it makes me want to go purchase the album or listen to Broadway music on Pandora endlessly. “He had it Coming!”
The musical got me thinking last night of all the performances that I would like to see and the ones that I have seen and would like to see again: Wicked, The Lion King, The Nutcracker, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago. Beauty and the Beast is coming later this month. Tickets are still available. I am going to have to see how that works into my schedule. Even though I have seen Wicked I have family members that would like to see it again and so would I. It will be here in June, hopefully not the same weekend my sister is getting married.
If I end up in Tulsa, I might have to check into becoming a season seat holder for the 2014-2015 season at the PAC next year. I want to see Phantom of the Opera and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and so many of the other shows look pretty great!
Anesthesiology rotation. This is an important rotation. It is important to add this information to my medical knowledge, especially since I am going to be performing surgery in my future career. I remember learning pharmacology two years ago. Why didn’t this information stay in my brain. Local anesthetics, general anesthesia medication, volatile gases, nondepolarizing versus depolarizing agents. Fasiculations, what’s that? I really need this information to stick!
It has been a long time since I had to make charts to remember drugs, but I guess it worked for pharmacology. Hopefully it will work for this rotation.
4 years worth of friendship.
or if you want to see 4 years in a flash:
My mom’s 52nd birthday was this weekend. My dad always puts out a lot of effort to make my mother’s birthday weekend special for her. My mom does so much all year for others and this is a good time of year for all of us to show her how much we love her. The night is usually full of food, fun, good company, games, and a little bit of alcohol.
This year I volunteered to get my mothers birthday cake. Chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting was her request. I am sure that she and my dad probably assumed that I would purchase her a cake from a bakery in Tulsa. Well I surprised them!
Not only did I decide to make her a cake, I decided to make her a cake from scratch. After much debate about transporting the cake from Tulsa or waiting until we got to Ponca City to make the cake I decided to call my grandmother to see if I could use her kitchen and her supervision to make my mother’s birthday cake. Let’s be real I have only made a few birthday cakes, which most of the time only one or two other people were going to see and eat the cake, so I was kind of worried about the task I had taken on and I needed all the supervision I could get. Mike had other plans for the afternoon so I needed my grandma.
I searched through cookbooks and the internet to find what recipes I would use. I really wanted to make sure that the cake was moist and fluffy. I also wanted to make sure the frosting was good. My mother is not a big fan of buttercream frosting and well as a matter of fact, I am not either. My favorite is cream cheese frosting, but my mom isn’t a fan. Learning how to make whipped frosting was anther task I took on too.
This is the cake recipe I used: http://divascancook.com/2013/06/moist-devils-food-cake-recipe-scratch-easy-chocolate-cake.html
Learning to flip the cakes out of the pan was fun and not disastrous. Making sure to line the cake pans with grease and flower made a huge difference. I will never just use Pam again to spray baking dishes with. The description of the cake was perfect. It was light and moist. There is a good chance that it was one of the moistest cakes I have ever eaten.
Whipped frosting is delicious and easy to make. I didn’t think that it was going to be that easy, but it really was. Grandma gave me good guidance on tweeking this recipe a bit. Here is the recipe I used for the frosting: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sturdy-whipped-cream-frosting/
The only thing to make sure that you do is really whip it until the peaks start to form, but there is a fine line to whipping to just the right stage and whipping it past that stage. I ended up using an entire bag of confectioners sugar (when this recipe says white sugar that what it actually means) and a 1/4 cup of crisco, plus an extra 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. Make sure that the house isn’t to warm when icing the cake too. Once I got the cake into a cold room the icing set up nicely. Once the icing was set up it didn’t ever start to melt again.
Once all the decorating was done, the cake ready to be presented at the birthday party my grandpa comes into the kitchen and says, “Wow! That looks great. I was worried early today. Chuckle. Chuckle.” (this man has watched many cakes hit to floor, fall out of pans sideways, cakes slide off of trays, you name it; he has probably seen it because my grandmother use to make and decorate cakes)
Oreos and M&M’s gave it a fun and added some additional chocolate!
My mom was surprised when we walked in with this cake. 
I think everyone liked it. It was pretty delicious. 
Happy 52nd Birthday Mom! Hope you have many more great years to celebrate with us.
Thank you grandma for your time. I loved spending the afternoon with her and I loved spending the evening with the rest of my family.
I must remember to count my blessings.
Long before I moved to Tulsa I was given a book by my best friend. The Purpose Driven Life. I picked this book up off of my shelf a few days after Christmas this year to realize that I had started to read it. I don’t know when I actually started this adventure, but I know it was at least greater than 4 years ago. To make this book even more important it was given to her family by her husbands grandma. There is a nice note written in the front of it. There was also a nice picture of Julie & Tyler being used as a book mark. I am pretty sure this picture was taken in the early 2000s. Besides this book being special to Julie, it was special enough that she gave it to me, or let me borrow it because of the impact she wanted it to have on my life.
This book is a 40 day commitment. A 40 day commitment to starting a road that should be lived the rest of my life. Just because it is called the Purpose Driven LIfe doesn’t mean that it is telling you exactly how to live and exactly what I should do with my life, but it is a good foundation for reflecting on what I was raised to believe as a Christian and how to follow this path for the rest of my adult life. So far I have made it to day 16/40. I am trying to learn the Bible verses at the end of each day. Great reflections to end my day with.
Verses to Remember:
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