Happy New Years! Welcome to 2010!

It's that time of year...time to make those New Years Resolutions. I'm not going to lie, I did not stick to last years resolutions very well. I made an effort not to use paper or plastic bags at the grocery store. The whole idea of flossing...well I can't even say I made a good effort at that one. This year I have something in store for all of you readers out there. I am going on a year long challenge and....well if you want you are more than welcome to come along for the ride!

I recently read a book, Sleeping Naked Is Green, in which the writer makes an eco-friendly or green change every single day for an entire year! That is 365 green changes! Now now - I'm not that crazy.



The woman who wrote the book ended up selling her car and unplugging her refrigerator! There is no way that I have the time or the energy to make that many changes.

My plan is to go for 52 green changes, that is one per week. This I feel is much more manageable and it gives me a full week to get used to each new green change that I make and hopefully semi-solidify it into a new habit. When it comes to carbon consumption I am a real fatty -we're talking nearly 15 carbon tonnes per year. I calculated this from carbonfootprint.com and carbonfund.org
I have started working on my green changes list for a little while now to start preparing myself for the year. And I will tell you right now some changes are going to be really easy and others not so much. My goal by the end of the year is to at least attempted having a compost bin and to go on a carb(on) diet with the ultimate goal of decreasing my weight to less than 10 tonnes.

My mother thinks I'm crazy, but her and Dad make eco-friendly changes on my behalf (thank you) and we'll see if Sief and I survive the year.
When I told him that there were going to be some green changes coming around when I got back to Hershey he informed me that, "I'm not wiping my ass with a towel and then washing it!"

Every Sunday will be the day that I post my change for the week. So...get ready this Sunday will be the first change!

It shall be an interesting year! 2010 holds lots of excitement: green challenge, graduation from medical school (woo woo!!!), and moving (location To be Determined - we'll find out March 18th!

A Belated Happy Holidays!

It's been longer than I thought since I have last posted. I guess that's what happens when things get busy with interviews and the holidays! I hope everyone is enjoying a nice Christmas break with family and friends. This year was a fun year for us - the theme at our family Christmas Eve was ugly holiday attire. The new cool thing is ugly holiday sweater parties. Ugly sweaters are quite the hot commodity on ebay - oftentimes selling for $20+. We went to the thrift store and did the best we could for ugly attire.

We found my mom a turtleneck covered in Christmas presents and a shirt with lots of dangle ball things hanging off of it. My shirt - which is hard to tell it's full tackiness, is ribbed in red glitter and is a little too short for me. The best part is that someone cut the sleeves which are completely uneven and aren't even close to matching. My mom and I made earrings out of small stick on bows for presents and I had a tinsel necklace, which didn't last the entire nigth because it made my neck itch too much! Dad's vest we ended up ironing on some old material pieces we had and quickly sewed on some jingle bells.

Here's a beautiful family picture from the event!



A group shot of the cousins.



And the best for last - my Aunt Edwina!



As usual it was a fun-filled evening, filled with laughter, love, and good food.
Wishing you and yours a belated happy and safe holiday!

Quick Recap

This last week was hectic and it was nothing compared to what is coming up this week.

Quick recap - I spent 3 days in Phoenix, Arizona last week. While there, the weather was relatively cold and it RAINED!!!! Apparently they say it only rains like 5-10 times per year and of course I land when it decides to pour. Oh, well at least I'm used to it. 2 interviews in Phoenix. Sief had one. We visited with a former Penn State grad who is an Emergency medicine resident currently. I spent time with a former Penn Stater who is a family med resident about to graduate. We walked around downtown Tempe and I ate frozen yogurt! YUM. I decided that Tempe is the smoothie/frozen yogurt capital of the US. Seriously, every single store sold one or both, which is totally awesome. I have a soft spot for frozen yogurt with sprinkles. As, I was walking down the street eating my yogurt in 50 degree weather, I turn to Sief and say, "you know why they have so many places that have smoothies/ice cream/ and yogurt? It's because it's usually hot here!" He looked at me and said "you just figured that out"

Anyway...some good programs in Phoenix, we're excited.

Next stop was Houston, Texas. It's weird even though I never lived in Houston - a part of me feels like I'm going "home" when I land in Texas. I'm suddenly surrounded by familiar Texas chain restaurants and stop lights that are horizontal. I stopped at a fast food joint- Taco Cabana to get some yummy tortillas and queso. Sief joined me a day later and again we met up with another Penn State Grad. It's nice to see familiar faces along the interview trail.

I made it home last night. Only to unpack, wash clothes and....start all over again.

This week here's my schedule:
Sun- dinner in San Jose with O'Connor program
Mon - interview in San Jose
Tues - fly to San Antonio (I'm super excited about this, but will only be in San Antonio for a few hrs), drive to corpus christi, dinner with corpus residents
Wed - interview at corpus, fly to Tucson
Thurs - interview with 2 Tucson family medicine residencies on the same day, fly to Oakland
Fri - interview at San Francisco
Sat - Sief comes to Chico to visit & we go to Marianne & Conway's for a Christmas party
Sun - FUN & GAMES with the family!

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I will try to write when I get back next week. No guarantees though. Wish me luck! Let's hope I survive this week :)
I guess this is just preparing me for how tired I might feel during residency.

Decorating the Tree

This evening Mom and I decorated the Christmas tree! We decorate with antique ornaments gathered over the years. Each ornament is individually wrapped in tissue paper in a big plastic box.



It's fun to open them each up and remember how this or that one is my favorite. Or find those not so pretty one's you bought from a trip somewhere years ago. They usually got shoved back into the box.

along with these beauties!



For some reason Mom no longer feels obligated to put up the beautiful half walnut shell and clear cup glittered ornaments I made especially for her as a child. haha (I guess my feelings aren't hurt too badly)



Stringing the lights on the tree...listening to Christmas music - I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I cannot remember the last time I was home to decorate the tree.



Mom like's the little bottle brush tree he is holding.

And the almost finished product! It still needs the angel (which currently is lost somewhere) and another string of garland which Mom will be restringing this week.



What are some of your holiday traditions? Do you have a tree decorating ritual?



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I will be MIA for the next week, because I am on the interview trail again!
Sunday I fly to Phoenix - interview there at two different programs on Monday & Tuesday. Wednesday I fly out to Houston, interview there on Thursday and fly home Friday!
I'll post when I get back!

Picking up the Christmas Tree

My Dad and I were given the job of going to pick out our Christmas tree for the season. This is the first time since I was in middle school that we've been allowed to pick out the tree all by ourselves. The reason we've been banned from Christmas tree shopping without my mom is because one year, we spent $80 on a tree! Don't ask my why or how that happened, but for some reason it was extremely hard that year to find good Christmas trees. Trust me we looked. I remember a lot of them being short and small. And if you know my mom, well she is very picky about her tree. So Dad and I searched all over to find the perfect tree that year. We ended up buying the tree from a nursery in Orland, I believe. We had a beautiful tree that year, but were in big big trouble when mom found out how much money we had spent. :)

Well...today we set out again - not to repeat history. We found ourselves at Costco and guess what you get to pick your tree, but it's all bundled up, so there's no real way to tell what it looks like.

To make the situation slightly more complex, we had our 2 dogs with us in our car. Yes our car. My little honda civic from high school which has now become the dog-mobile. And.....of course we bought food (including dog food) from Costco. If you know my dog, Sally, well then you know that you can't leave food in the back of the car (we usually have the seats down when the dogs are with us) and drive or else she will tear through anything to get to it.

I'm picturing in my head, a tree tied atop our car going 35mph on the freeway, while I am sitting in the passenger seat trying to hold onto my little dog, who is struggling the entire time to get to the back seat where all the good stuff is.




Well, Dad is smart enough to say hey - let's just put the seats up, so Sally can't get to the food. I picked out the tallest tree I could find at Costco, it's still only 7-8 ft. Dad and I tied the tree to the top of the car with 2 pieces of twine (pictured above). And we started the drive home.



As we're driving you can here clunk-clunk, every time we go over a bump. It was the roof denting in and then popping out from the weight of the tree. We took back roads home & made it successfully!



Ta-Da...tree, car, and dogs all home in one piece!

Now let's just hope it's a pretty tree when we cut it open otherwise Dad & I won't ever be allowed to pick out a tree together again :(

Pomegranate Jelly

My absolute favorite jelly in the entire world is my grandmother's homemade pomegranate jelly. She usually makes enough that I have a steady supply all year long. And even though it's my favorite, it's not like I eat everyday. Anyway, this year I ran out - probably a couple of months ago :(
It's sad because my english muffin with cream cheese and jelly is not the same if it's not pomegranate jelly.
Lucky for me, pomegranate season just ended and my grandma has tons of juice from which to make....of course none other than yummy jelly.

Today I learned how to make the delicious, sugary, sticky stuff! YUM! And...surprisingly it was not as difficult as I expected it to be. But I will admit that I was lucked out in not being around when my grandmother juiced all of the pomegranates - which is definitely the hardest and messiest part of the job.

Ok, so here you go a step by step guide:



Take 3 1/2 cups Pomegranate juice, mix with 1 package MCP pectin (2 oz box) and a little bit of butter (like 1/4 teaspoon) - really just a sliver

Stir together and leave over med-high heat until boiling.

Once boiling add 5 cups of sugar - all at once



and stir



Again leave over heat until mixture comes to a full rolling boil (one that does not stop with stirring) see below. Once this starts set a timer for 2 minutes!



After 2 minutes turn off the heat, wait for the bubbles to go down & then scrape off some of the foam. Discard.

Now it's time to get a warm jelly jar (we has ours in a pot of hot water on the stove, but also heard you can heat the jars up in the oven)
Use a funnel & pour in the jelly!



Not pictured...but you need to wipe the rim of the jar before putting the lid on in order to ensure a good seal!



And TaDa - DONE!!! Just sit and wait for the popping noise that signifies that the lids have sealed!





And here you go....19 jars of jelly!

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This morning I woke up and came out to the kitchen to see my mom making toast. I naively assumed that she was going to have some of my wonderful, delicious homemade jelly on her toast, but no....I was wrong. Instead as I'm toasting my bread I look over to see her spreading Trader Joe's cherry jelly on her toast! Needless to say I was appalled and promptly made her feel bad about not eating my jelly.

Here's a picture of my toast this morning....YUM!



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Here's a link to the recipe we used if you want a more condensed version without all of the pictures: Pomegranate Jelly Recipe

Vegas, Baby!

I spent last night in Sin City...Las Vegas. Even though I was by myself, I still enjoyed my time there and did quite a bit of exploring. My mom found me a room for $40 at Harrah's on the strip. After checking in and hanging up my suit, I decided a walk on the strip would be nice and I could find a place for dinner. First, I had to ask for directions out of my hotel, because these places are soooooooooo big it's very easy to get lost - especially for someone who has a horrible sense of direction. Anyway, I started at The Venetian, which has the romantic little boats people can sit in and be paddled around. I found a great store inside called David and Goliath which has some awesome t-shirts, key chains, magnets, etc. I had a tough time not buying up half the store, just because it's some funny stuff!

Next, I continued down the strip - past the Bellagio where from across the street, I watched part of the dancing waters. I also caught some of the volcano outside of The Mirage. Paris was a stop I made, because I know they have a cute store in there that I like. No luck on this trip. I continued down to New York, New York. Let me tell you - it may not sound like a long walk, but it was. Things in Vegas seem closer, because everything is so HUGE. It's sort of like car mirror warning...objects in mirror are closer than they appear - except the opposite. Objects are truly much much farther than you would think, because they are so extravagantly ENORMOUS.

I've decided that Vegas is similar to Disneyland for adults, because everything is over the top and completely overdone. Attention is given to every last detail. After walking across the mini-Brooklyn bridge I made my way across the street to MGM. At this point my feet were tired and I was hungry. I thought about going back to Paris for crepes. I made the decision to ride the monorail, which runs along the strip behind some of the hotels. Well, had I known that walking all the way to the back of MGM was just as far as walking to Paris - i would have just walked to Paris. Needless to say, I made it to the back of MGM, paid my $5 to ride the monorail and since Paris was the first stop, continued on down to Harrah's. I was going to get my $5 worth, because it's a one shot deal and I wasn't paying another $5 or walking from Paris back to my hotel. Crepes would have to wait.

Oh and I almost forgot - I got to see the lions that are inside MGM. I walked underneath them in a glass tunnel, while they laid down up above my head. Apparently the lions live at a ranch or somewhere about 20 miles from the strip and they only stay at MGM for 5-6 hrs at a time. Everyday they have 2 different sets of lions come into the casino and if you were there for a week, you may see the same lion twice.

After getting off at Harrah's I walked across the street to The Forum Shops at Ceasar's Palace and had dinner in the super duper nice shopping mall there. I ate Spago, which is a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. I had a Spago Cosmo (which had raspberry puree) - super yummy and a margarhita pizza. Afterwards, I had some super expensive gelato and ended up getting lost in the mall. I thought I was going the right direction, until I saw this GIGANTIC troy horse that led into FAO Schwartz. I did not see said horse on the way in, which meant I was walking the wrong way out.

Eventually, I made it back to my hotel around 8:30 and was ready to crash. I ended up reading about my program that I interviewed at today & then passed out, before having to get up super early to head to my interview.

I feel there are more things to tell, but I can't remember them all now! Sorry, no pictures - I was being lazy and didn't want to look too much like a tourist - if that's possible while walking down the strip. Not that anyone would notice anyways...