Back to Iowa

I just returned from a week off in Iowa with my parents. It was pretty low key. I'm on a Community month this month which is where we don't do a lot of clinical work but learn about a lot of resources around the community. I did some interesting things this month including learning a little about public policy and advocacy, public health, disaster preparedness plans etc. We also are required to do a couple of projects, one with one of the community organizations and one quality improvement project for the hospital/residency. Since the month is on the lighter side of things, I decided to take Step 3 of my USMLE exam. It was a two day test this time and I think after a fair amount of studying, that it went okay. Even though it's a multiple choice test, I won't know the results for a couple months. Since I spent the majority of the month studying for the test, I kind of put off my other projects until my vacation week. So even though it was 5 days off at home, I spent the majority of the day working on the projects. I did, however, spend the evenings with my parents and just kind of bumming around. We went and watched my highschool's volleyball team play (they won and they're ranked 3rd in the state) and in general did a lot of reading too. It was nice to get away!

I came back a day early and was able to do some touch up work, spackling and painting, in my bathroom because of the removal of the old countertop and sink. I also went on a Haunted Hayride last night which was kind of fun! It was one of those outdoor fields with a corn maze, a couple of haunted houses and the hay ride. So, I didn't dress up for this Halloween (I'll be on call on the 31st) but did get to enjoy a little bit of the festivities. This coming month I'll be doing an ER month so that means shift work with some weird hours but at least I'm in my own bed everynight! Nothing else too much to report...

The Saga of Big George

Kelly Bienhoff visited this past weekend. We were in my office/guest room and were folding up the bedding when we noticed Big George (a large, hairy spider) scuttling across the floor. We both shrieked and neither of us had any shoes immediately available. However, my TI 85 graphing calculator (a rather bulky, heavy calculator) was at hand so I threw it on Big George. Big George proceeded to push the calculator off himself and scurried under the couch. We folded up the rest of the bedding and then looked under the couch and poof, Big George had disappeared. It appeared he had some sort of magical powers. The rest of the weekend we pondered as to the whereabouts of Big George as he was nowhere to be seen. As Kelly packed her bags on Sunday she even wondered if it was possible that Big George had crawled in to her things and he may turn up in Kansas City! I thought it was very possible and proceeded to put him out of my mind ... until this morning. I walked out of my bathroom (in my bedroom) after showering this morning and noted some quick movement across the room along the baseboard. AHA! It was Big George, he had simply moved across the condo instead of flying to Kansas City. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for Big George, I did have a sandle at hand and proceeded with great vigor to dispatch Big George to his next life. (it took 3-4 very good thwaps). I then used about 6 kleenexes all wadded up to pick up Big George (so as not to actually feel the dead Big George inside them all) and sent to him a watery grave with a resounding flush. So ends the saga of Big George.

The Home Improvement Continues

Post call and I arrived home to find the tilework done in my kitchen and both bathrooms. You're looking at the kitchen above. I LOVE the tile and am happy I decided to do the diagonal lines in the kitchen. The contractor I hired had laid all the tile which I'd seen and then finished up when I was working yesterday, so the grout color was a surprise. I picked out a color which I thought was more of a dark gray/brown and ended up getting the light gray which you see above. Too late to do anything about it now. I guess the good news that as it gets dirty, it will only get darker, right :) I also got a new vanity top and faucet for my bathroom which I think looks nice. The previous whas a tan linoleum top but it's now white marble and the faucet is brushed silver matching the rest of the fixtures in the bathroom.

New-ness

Not too much going on with me but I thought it was high time for an update ....

First things first, I finally decided to sit down and make an actual budget. I've always prided myself on being responsible with my money but was especially motivated to recently either acquire some more or figure out a way not to spend so much when my college friend Karla sent out her save the date cards for her wedding in .... St. Lucia! Wouldn't that be a lovely place to spend a few days in March? I think so, too. This year I was excited because since I'm a 2nd year resident I am now qualified to do some moonlighting for extra cash. This was great until a couple of weeks ago, our program announced that our malpractice insurance does not cover us doing this anymore so there went that opportunity. Since I can't realistically pick up extra cash any other way, I decided I'd have to put some limitations on my spending and save some money that way. I'll let you know how it goes ...

Second, I have recently become addicted to Sweet Tea. Sweet tea is iced tea that is, surprise, sweet and seems to be something fairly popular in the southern half of the country since I don't recall running across it in Iowa at any point. Now I wouldn't consider Indianapolis in the "South" although it surprised me greatly to learn I'm closer to Kentucky than I am to Chicago. That being said, there is sweet tea around here and is one my favorite beverages of choice. There's a chain of restaurants/delis called McAllister's which makes particularly good sweet tea so if you ever see one, I highly recommend it.

A Blissful Day Off

Due to the requirements in residency, it's mandatory that we have 4 days off a month. Normally we're able to work this out and get the four days to fall on weekends but this month because of the number of residents I was working with, I had to go in pretty much every weekend. Instead, I was forced to take a day off during the week and that was today. I saved it for the end of the month and it was wonderful. I didn't do anything exciting ... just worked out, got my oil changed, and watched a movie. But when you have so few days off, it makes you really, really appreciate it. I felt like I was on vacation today! So all you people out there who work 5 days a week and have the weekend off every weekend, enjoy it for me! Maybe someday, I'll get there again ....

Toilet debacle

So, here's a word to the wise for everyone. If you're going to attempt to repair your own toilet, make sure it's not leaking and make sure the valve for shutting the water off doesn't break. Oh, and it doesn't hurt if you don't have carpet in your bathroom as well. So that's what happened this weekend. Water leaked everywhere and because some idiot (not me, it was there when I bought the place) thought it'd be a good idea to put carpet in the bathroom, the carpet wicked the water right through the wall and into my living room and hallway. Now the plumbing job only cost $50 to fix but all the equipment to dry out the wall costs significantly more. You can see above the way they had to drill into the drywall and place tubing to suck out all the water. Crazy. Well, you learn a little bit every day, right? They ripped out all the carpet in the bathroom so I'm going to be buying some ceramic tiles sometime soon and it should look a lot better after that.

Shaking your booty vs. Drawing on a booty

So I'm on call as we speak with my friend Marcie and we're just admitting a girl with some butt abscesses (i.e. pockets of infection on her butt). She's actually doing pretty well, just needs some IV antibiotics and then will go home. However Marcie and I were just lamenting that fact that instead of going out dancing on a Saturday night and shaking our booties that instead we're stuck in the hospital and are having to draw on a girl's butt or booty (Mom, that means butt) to document the spread of the infection. Sigh ...