Holidays

Phew. It's been a loooong month but it's over and I made it to California in one piece!

It was rough through the Christmas week because I had to work every single day since 12/21. and it's never as quiet as you expect on Christmas.

But I was able to leave for three very special dinners with my hubby and his family and family friends. Christmas eve, we had a "Swedish Christmas" dinner with Swedish meatballs and potato sausage, beets, and cabbage. Yum.

This was the first time I've ever had a Waterford "salad"... cool whip and pineapple and a few other simple ingredients that are divine in combination. I could have had this entire bowl!

This is the best Swedish dessert: osta caka. Not sure if that's how you spell it but it's between a custard and a cheesecake and it's SOOOOO delicious. Topped with blueberries and whipped cream. My in-laws make this for me every time I visit Denver so it was a treat to have it in Chicago this time around!

I have no food pictures from Christmas dinner, but we had the most tender tenderloin and Erin's famous plate of 10 different cookies. mmm.

My last day in Chicago with my hubby, we had an unexpected afternoon off together. We went to Molly's Cupcakes and had two very very moist and perfect cupcakes. I had the cookies and cream cupcake and Armand had the tiramisu cupcake. That with hot chai and coffee, while playing games reminiscent of our childhood (Connect Four and Scrabble)... a great way to spend an afternoon.

Currently, I'm in LA enjoying the sunshine and the great shopping bargains! :)

Happy holidays to everyone... can't wait to see what 2009 will bring!

Wow.

I thought after my month in the intensive care units, that _nothing_ could be worse. I was so wrong.

Being a true "senior" on a fairly big team is harder than I imagined. And I was already imagining it to be hard. But I seriously spend my entire days (which are long btw) running around like a chicken with a head cut off. I carry many hats:

-Secretary (answering the phone, returning pages, working on the signout)

-Referee (calming down angry parents, negotiating between pharmacy, radiology, and the nurses)

-Supervisor (for interns and medical students, and even sometimes the ER!)

-Personal Bitch (for the Attending)

The good thing is that we don't have to be work overnight, but the bad thing is I often get home close to 8:30-9p, six days a week! Our hours are close to 75hrs/week, which is pretty darn hard to do without taking overnight call.

The other good thing is that the FUN parts of this month are when I actually get to supervise and teach. I just feel like those moments are few and far between.