1/09

 Today I am actually enjoying a Sunday where my (daily) to do list is completed. I went to a yoga class and walked the dog. I spent time reading with all the kids, and supervised piano practice. I tried another recipe in my quest for perfect curry noodles (todays from Mark Bittman, is not the winner). I paid the bills. I studied and even read three chapters from A Prayer for Owen Meany. Now it is just a matter of sitting around and playing our new Carmen San Diego game with the kids. I know I only have another 6 hours or so to enjoy it, but it sure feels great to be home and relaxed for a bit.

  I have approximately 20 weeks/450 hours to go before I come close to completing my Masters - I still have to pass boards, but the most intensive work will be done. Ariel and I are both finding ourselves working too much, and it is hard - although we definitely feel grateful that we have work to do. I am going to work hard to finish my clinicals before school ends at the end of June, and am prepared to take some leave from work if I have to.  We are planning a road trip to the Grand Canyon for Spring Break, and I am hoping that I can take Isaac for a long weekend to either D.C. or NYC when school ends. 

 One of the most exciting things that has gone on is a job has practically fell into my lap. About two months ago a friend sent me an email about a local  M.D. who has a micropractice (which means he has no support staff, but takes up to 45 minutes with each patient) and practices Functional Medicine (i.e. naturopathic/alternative)  that was looking for an NP to expand his client base. I decided to send him my resume, thinking I would never hear from him. He rather informally interviewed me, and as it stands, he is going to use some of my clinical hours to train me to do functional medicine and has plans to hire me when I am all done.  His particular type of practice is so much more appealing than the 15 minutes in and out standard practice, and I am allowed to set my own hours. The only thing that makes it less than perfect is  lack of complete health coverage. I can't quite believe such an amazing opportunity has just fallen in my lap -if it works out, I will be 7/7 for being hired at every job I have ever applied for. 

Too close for comfort??

  In the past week, I have read two newspaper articles and listened to one radio story about grandparents living in/near their children and grandchildren. The article in the NY times mentioned that Barack Obama's MIL was going to be moving to the White House with them. Our families situation is even a little more extreme; we added on a MIL apartment to our house for my parents, and bought the house next door for Ariel's parents. 

  While I have frequent thoughts of moving away from Olympia, I have almost no desire to leave our little family unit. There are days when we are a little close for comfort - and I know there are days when our parents get a little annoyed with a herd of children running through their house, but I can't imagine a much better way to bring up kids. 

  I certainly can't imagine being able to juggle four young kids with work and school without the help of the Grandmas. Monday and Tuesday the kids go to Grandma Ruth's after school, while Wednesday and Thursday is Grandma Mariettas. I hope that the Grandparents feel they are getting as much from the arrangement as we do. 

 Tonight for movie night we watched Anne of Green Gables...I had forgotten how much I loved the story.  It was so much fun to watch it together as a family. I remember how big a crush I had on Gilbert, and now he looks like such a little kid, sigh. 

Lexus

Today at the hospital, in front of our units window...an older man in a Chevy Suburban (who had a cast on) somehow jumped the sidewalk and curb and landed completely on top of a surgeon's gold lexus SUV. It provided us and our patient's at least an hours entertainment.

Revolutionary Road

I don't have any plans to see the new Kate Winslet/Leo Dicaprio movie anytime soon, but all the reviews about it have certainly given me some pause. The plot is that of a fifties suburban family who are destroyed by their attempts to recapture the dreams and adventures of their pre-domestic life. In the story, the wife is the prime catalyst of the destruction, as she sets up plans to escape. The story hit a little bit too close to home for me. I feel like I constantly struggle with second guessing my life choices and wondering how exactly I got to be a mom of four living ten miles from where I grew up, when I pictured a life very different then this.

Of course, this is not the 1950s, and I am not some bored housewife trapped by decisions beyond my control. Still, the sentiments made me squirm. On the radio, they were discussing the movie, when a favorite talk show host of mine told a story of how he used to crave a life of adventure, but when he actually saw the lives of the war correspondants who he fantasized about being, he realized their lives were pretty hard and difficult. I have a few friends who live lives close to what I imagined I always wanted and they aren't really any happier than I am. They are often anxious about the choices and sacrifices they have made for their freedom and adventure.
At 31, I still feel like I have a lot of time to live out other lives, and to enjoy the time I have with my family now. I also try and remember that no matter who you are, life is basically filled with the mundane, and that contentenment comes from finding happiness even in the tedious. I don't know that my shlipkis is going to go away anytime soon, though.

Christmas '08

    This Christmas has been one of those great times as a family I wish I could bottle up. I worked yesterday and at the last minute we all went out to Japanese Steak House with our friends Craig and Carrie. This is the first year we haven't done something with my family on Christmas Eve, since it had gotten to stressful to have everyone over at our house. 

     When Ar picked me up from work to take us out, I thought he had lost his mind - we almost never take all four kids out to dinner, let alone with another family with 3 kids the same age. Instead, it was fantastic! The key to going out to dinner with our kids is to have a chef lighting the food on fire in front of us. We had such a good time, and also got to stop by Ar's grandparents, who didn't feel up to coming over for Christmas this year. We opened up pyjamas when we got home. Ariel had decided to wait to wrap all the presents until Christmas Eve to perpetuate the Santa story - I abandoned him at 11:00 and he was up until 6 am; wrapping presents and finishing up the sword and shields he made (from a Book of Mormon Battles website, oddly enough). 

  We finally had a white Christmas in Washington, which is lovely. We walked across the lawn to Ariel's parents (one of the keys to a great Christmas is not getting into a car) and when everyone arrived, we opened presents. We only spent about 50$ on each kid, but they were very happy with what we got them, it is truly a joy to watch them open their presents and enjoy the time with them. Ariel's parents gave us a huge suprise; a Wii - I cannot wait to play!! The rest of the day was super relaxed, instead of having a big meal we just had snacks and turkey sandwiches and played board games.  We are working on winding the kids down (Ar is very, very tired), but at the moment they are roller blading around the house listening to the Mamma Mia soundtrack. 

oh yeah, I am being productive.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Peanut Butter Cups

On Saturday, I started off my weekend with not one, but two, interviews. Given that Friday was absolutely a day from hell (a tree fell over in our front yard, patients went to the ICU, and two kids threw giant tantrums), it might have been nice to have a chill weekend, but I wasn't going to get it.
The first was a phone interview of Ariel and I for a parenting book Marc and Amy Vachon are writing on Equally Shared Parenting. I had emailed them several months ago about an article in the New York Times that featured them, and they thought we might have some input because we pretty much split parenting equally - and we are crazy enough to have four kids between 4 and 7. The phone interview was really fun.
My second interview was a sort of job interview...I heard through the grape vine that a local M.D. was looking to hire a Nurse practitioner and I sent him my resume, although I still have at least six months to graduation. His practice is called a micro practice, and he has no employees in order to keep overhead low. This allows him to spend from between 1/2 hour to 2 hours with his patients, and he has a strong holistic base. If he were to decide to hire me, it would check off almost all of my wish list for a job (Women's Health! Holistic medicine! Part time!!) . We met for lunch, and I was expecting a straight forward job interview, but he was on a slightly different wave length...he was calm and thoughtful, and I was rather nervous and yammery. I am going to start doing some observation time with him and he is going to provide me with some holistic training. At some point I think we will decide if the position would be a good fit for both of us. Overall, the interview was pleased, but I am a bit stressed about my first impression.
The rest of the day I barely sat down; I got some Christmas shopping down and took 1/2 the kids to a friends Gladiator birthday party.
When I woke up today, I was rather wrung out and just wanted to sit around. A friend brought over her three kids this morning so she could perform at church. Later on, we met my sister and her kids and grandkids at Charlie Safari. That was definitely an excellent idea; the kids played for a good three hours on the inside jungle gym. By the time we got home I was feeling much better, I even snuck in time to watch a very good Friday Night Lights episode and work on a school project.
As the kids got ready for bed, I realized what my weekend needed to be complete: peanut butter cups. Yumm. Now I can go to bed in peace.


Ingredients
For the base
2 ounces (50 grams) soft dark brown sugar
7 ounces (200 grams) icing sugar
2 ounces (50 grams) butter, softened
7 ounces (200 grams) smooth peanut butter
For the topping:
7 ounces (200 grams) milk chocolate
3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) dark chocolate
Gold buttons and edible gold stars to decorate, or other decorations of your choice
For the base:
Directions
Place all the ingredients for the base in the bowl of a food processor. Blend the mixture until the mixture takes on a sandy texture.
Place 48 gold petit four cases in sets of miniature tart tins or mini-muffin tins (each indent about 1 3/4-inches in diameter). Use 1 teaspoon of the base mixture to fill the bases of the petit four cases. Press the sandy mixture down into the cases as best you can to form a layer at the bottom of each paper case.
Place the milk chocolate and dark chocolate together into a heatproof bowl. Suspend the bowl over a pan of simmering water (the water should not touch the bottom of the bowl). Melt the chocolate gently while stirring. Spoon teaspoonfuls of the melted chocolate onto the top of each of the sandy bases of the petit four cases.
Decorate the tops of the chocolate covered peanut butter cups with either a gold button or gold star in the middle of each and transfer them to the fridge. Let them set in the fridge, for about 30 minutes.
To serve, arrange the chocolate peanut butter cups in their cases on a clean plate.