Not such a tame world....

"Resistance is Futile - You will be assimilated...."

At least according to Michael these days....

Poor man. I try his patience so....

When we first met & started dating, I was an Apple girl & he was a Microsoft boy. It just was. I was deep in the heart of my Russian degree & Apple made the only Cyrillic keyboard at the time. So in the language lab, I was one of the "lone rangers" sitting on the Mac side.

Michael did his darnest to convert me, but it took a couple of years. And then once we were married, well - my computer upgrades consisted of his computer hand-me-downs, which meant I was firmly in the Microsoft world.

But when the iPod and the Nano came out in the early 2000s, Michael relented and bought me an iPod, in green of course.  I loved that little music player. The simplicity of its design. The elegance of the touch dial interface. And even Michael was delighted with the packaging it came in. It was like opening up a treasured jewel box.

Since then, I've continued on in my Microsoft based world, but I've had one eye cast longingly at every new item that Apple has come out with.

All of that coveting & longing really came to a head this past year. Tabitha became obsessed that she needed, had to have, "was going to die if she didn't get" an iPod Touch for her birthday. Which, Michael being the pushover he is, got her. Once it was in her hands, she started to show me all the nifty apps & things she could do. And it took about 2 days for me to start wanting my own iTouch. Let's face it - Sam had already eaten the leather case off my Nano & in the process had dented the metal case with his teeth. And since I'm the Mom, not only did I want my own iTouch, but I wanted the 32GB version. Which my family got me for Mother's Day. And which I have tremendously enjoyed ever since.

Then, in later May, my laptop at work started dying a slow death. I did a bit of research and discovered that our EMR software could run on an iPad. It didn't take my partner very long to decide that it was time to up our game. So in early June I came in to find an iPad on my desk. We had some growing pains those first few weeks, but now we can't imagine doing Pediatrics without them. And I'm eagerly keeping my eyes open for the iPad - version 2 that's coming out later this year. I may spring for that upgrade myself.

Then to add to my "Apple envy" some of my co-workers and close friends have iPhones, and I have dearly wanted one for about 9 months. Only problem was that I am tied to Verizon. Very. Tightly. Tied. My family, close & extended, are all on that network, so switching to AT&T would have been very painful. Then lo & behold, Verizon announces they're getting the iPhone4. Be still my pounding heart -- what do I have to do to get one?!?! Turns out, my current phone was overdue for an upgrade and as a current user, I could pre-order.

So Feb 3 at 0200am, I was up. Michael was up. The cats, dogs & daughter all stayed asleep however. We logged on and ordered without a hitch. Feb 7th, a beautiful box from Verizon arrived at our house. Tab, being the spoiled rotten tween that she is, managed to talk Dad into getting her an iPhone too, but hers is the 16MB. I got the 32MB, just because. We thought we were obsessed to get up for 2am, but it turns out that Verizon sold out their pre-order phones within 6 hours. So I count myself as crazy & lucky at the same time!

It actually took me most of the week to get it configured and activated. Last weekend was spent checking out apps and tweaking settings. I also went a little nuts getting new ringtones. Seeing as I've had "Mission Impossible" as my main ringer for 8 years, it was probably time for a change.

So this past week has found me & my new iPhone living a symbiotic relationship. I love that small hunk of gadgetry. It's changed my life. Cliche, yes -- but very true. Texting is easier. Calling is easier. Searching for contacts, calendar dates, etc is easier. I love having all my music, facebook, twitter and Evernotes all at my fingertips. It's so much easier to check my email on the fly. I especially love having my Kindle books with me all the time now, too. And interestingly enough, it gives me some common ground to chat with Tabitha. We keep each other up-to-date on new cool apps, etc.

And did I mention that Michael got me a green case for this one too?

So going back to my intro - Michael is becoming resigned to the fact that the Apple lovers in this house, out number him. He's not ready to join us, but I've caught him playing with my apps! ;-)

And because a blog entry, isn't really an entry until there's a photo with it....

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

Sometimes, it's actually pretty handy....

That I have a medical degree.

• For instance, Saturday morning when I woke up feeling like crud, it was pretty easy to run a rapid strep screen at home on myself. Granted, that's not in the usual home first aid kit, but I've accumulated "stuff" over the years.
• Then when the test came up positive, it was pretty simple to just write my own prescription for good old fashioned amoxicillin. Not that I self-treat that much. But seriously -- on a Saturday, if I bugged my internist with this, even she would wonder why I just didn't write my own 'script. And she is way more conservative than I am in regards to antibiotics, etc.
• Although, I didn't really study veterinary medicine, I've picked up enough along the way; so that last weekend when Zoe the dog sliced her hind paw, I had a fairly good idea of what to do for canine first aid.
• Same deal when Brie the cat hurt her left eye. [And that one was ugly, even by my standards....]


But tonight really takes the cake.

Tabitha, being the "No Fear - Full Speed Ahead" kind of girl she is, has damaged herself in multiple varieties in the nearly 5 years we've had her. A few episodes that come to mind include:

• There was the time that Miss H & Miss E had to fireman-carry Tab home, as blood dripped from the abraded surface of her knee, down her leg, and soaked her sock & shoes.
• There was that time she slipped on a puddle in the girl's restroom at school, somehow slid into a stall and stopped when her arm slammed into the toilet base. [I actually got x-rays that time, because she was crying so hard I really couldn't tell if she'd broken anything or not.]
• There was the time in our master bath, when she went to show Michael how she could do a back layover. She over-extended, then fainted, and walloped her face into the tub surround on her way down to the floor. She spent the next week with a really ugly shiner and a concussion. And Michael spent at least 48 hours shell-shocked....
• Then one of my personal favorites was the time that Michael & I came around the corner and found her splayed out on the sidewalk. She'd decided to wear flip-flops to ride her bike. Hit a rock on the sidewalk. Lost her footing and slid. Then subsequently her toes ended up caught in the spokes of her front tire. [I did manage to render aid without saying "I told you so", but she's never questioned me since when I tell her to wear "real shoes"....] Total damage was lots of scrapes & bruises, a torn up toe, but no broken bones.
• Just a month or two ago, she was cleaning out her school notebook and held up her hand. As I looked up from washing dishes, I noticed that she was dripping blood on her papers. She noticed at about the same time and that's when she came un-glued. Turned out to be an extremely fierce paper-cut.

<Sigh>....Over time she's had lots of bruises, scrapes, etc. So far [knock on wood], no broken bones. But she really does not like the sight of blood. And she especially does not like the sight of her own blood.

Hence we come to tonight's episode....

At about 9:45pm, this very sad, wet, bedraggled Tabitha shuffles into my office, holding a white towel to her head and weeping. She holds the towel out to me and there's large areas of blood staining it. At that point she sniffles and managed to tell me that she fell getting out of the bathtub in her bathroom.

[An important detail, as she does not pick her things up off the floor, nor does she keep the floor dry while she bathes, so it's always a slip hazard. And don't worry -- I have mentioned this to her many times before....<sigh>....]

As I looked her over, I noted the large amount of bright red blood on her crown. I started dabbing it away with the towel, but couldn't really see where the bleeding was coming from. It took a few minutes to really get her cleaned up. At which point I discovered this was very superficial from a 1/16th inch scrape on her scalp. [Scalp wounds! Ughhh! They always look so bad.]

By this point she finally had told me what happened, and yet once again we were lucky to avoid the ER.

She was getting out of the tub while it was still full & very wet, stepped on a wet tile and slipped. At which point she fell backwards & bonked the top of her head on the point of the ceramic soap dish that's molded into the shower/bath surround.

Since she was complaining of a headache, and dizziness, and nausea- well she's likely got a concussion (Again!). So she got some tylenol and an icepack, and in a few minutes I'm going to go peek at her pupils....

At anyrate, I'm very glad she didn't go to Michael first, or I would have had two patients -- and I don't keep suturing supplies around the house....

Just another day of misadventures in my TAME world....

 

 

On the Twelth Day of Christmas....

My true love gave to me....

Well, I guess that'd be my true love, wouldn't it now?

Michael

Goodness, what to add to what I've written previously? 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 2009 we were apparently busy living life & I was focused on Face book more than my blog. [Sorry Bloggy! Sorry Sweetie! Really. It's been a great 13 years....]

So instead I'm sitting here & jamming to Muse and revisiting old blog posts that have "Michael" in the category field. And overall I'm overwhelmed by the immense blessing this man has been to my life. Don't even go into how he helps me stay mentally stable.["Serenity Now!!"]  He has been reliable, and caring, and trustworthy, and loyal, and supportive. He keeps the home network running and all the household computers in-line. He gets Tab up & moving most mornings. He walks dogs. He wipes paws. He pets cats. He grocery shops (people & critters). You name it -- he's been there/done that. For instance, this was him about 7am, after being in the ER with me for 5.5 hours while we waited for me to be transferred to the telemetry unit, August 25, 2008. He was exhausted and very stressed -- but he was there....

 

Without him, I'd have no appreciation for the fine art of coffee brewing. [I don't drink, but I'm highly entertained by the precise process he goes through just for the "perfect" espresso/latte/cappuccino.] Without him, I wouldn't know that I have a yen for sake. [Pun intended - just for you Sweetie!] Without him, I wouldn't have someone else to defer the 630am puppy reveille to. [Of course, I'm on the midnight shift for that one -- divide and conquer....] Without him, I also wouldn't have someone who every single time, falls for my "puppy-dog-eyes" and then indulges me -- usually as I'm talking about the latest & greatest in camera gear or scrapbooking accoutrement.

This is Michael doing some serious coffee mill maintenance:

We've been together long enough now that we get each other's quirks. His absent-minded professor ways don't frustrate me so much -- I've learned to expect them. And fortunately for me, he's got a much higher level of tolerance than I do.... And he makes me laugh, most times without trying very hard at all. And this past year, he's really loosened up around me & the camera & I've started to be able to capture that silly goofy side of his. And I LoVe that!!

As the years go by, there's more grey sprinkled in his hair. [It's still all there though!] There's more character around his eyes. And I love him just a bit more every day....

 

So Sweetie, If you're reading this -- Thanks for being my True Love!!

Love ya! T.

So that concludes my 12 Days of Christmas for 2009-2010. Thanks for reading & commenting. And maybe you'll be inspired to write down how you feel about the people in your life whom you love. Let'em know. Life may be shorter than you realize....

On the Sixth Day of Christmas....

My true love gave to me....

"Da Boys"

AKA: Matt, Billy, Jeff & Tony. Michael is in the middle.

The above photo is from our wedding 13 years ago, back when none of them had grey or thinning hair. :-) These four men and Michael form the "core group". There's a couple others who sort of float in & out, depending on when they're in the area.

I''ve now known them all for 16 years. In order to date Michael, I ended up being vetted by Tony and his girlfriend one night at Mama's Pizza in Fort Worth. Talk about pressure. Meeting his parents wasn't as tough! Of course, given today's mobile society, how rare is it to have friends that go back 35+ years to grade school? Through all their shared experiences & adventures, they are more a group of brothers than "just friends." I'll never forget Matt's Best Man toast at our wedding, when he welcomed me to the family, and I feel like I've always been included. Around our house, we refer to them as Tabitha's Uncles, because "close family friends" just doesn't explain enough.

And should the need ever arise, I would not hesitate to call on any of them for help. They've slaved through back-breaking moves. They played key roles in our adoption process, from being character witnesses to Matt fingerprinting us on multiple occasions. [Relax -- he's a police officer!] Tony saved my senior level biology grade in college at 2am when Michael & I crashed at his house for an emergency print job on my term paper, which was due at 8am that day. [Nothing like the last minute & then having a fatal printer error....] Billy provides the moral compass & reality check. And Jeff is my partner-in-crime when it comes to experimenting to find the perfect recipe for a Pumpkin Pie Martini. [We're still working on it -- I'll let you know when we succeed.]

The three years of my residency when Michael & I were away from home was much harder on him than me in some ways. I had all my fellow residents to commiserate with. Michael was without "Da Boys" and our family. So when I finished and he wanted to "go home" I was more than willing. And there was never any question that home would be up in North Texas. Early on, we were fairly close geographically speaking. Not so much these days. But they meet semi-regularly for lunches, sushi dinners & "guy" movies. Then we try to get all of us, "Da Boys, spouses, kids, etc", together once a year. I look forward to those times when we actually pull it off. There's talk going on now about a possible New Year's Day Rock Band tournament. Looks like this year, I need to update the group photo!

So Boys! Cheers!! This one's for you!!

Our Texas Blizzard - Christmas 2009

Here's a compilation of clips from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day of what the weather was like around here.

Now, I realize for my New England family -- this is realatively unexciting. I was in Massachusettes for the Blizzard of 1978 and I clearly remember the 10 foot high snowdrift in my grandparents' front yard after the iceplows came through.

I know what a "real" blizzard looks like, but for my Texas-born husband this recent snowfall was intensly exciting! Tabitha was exubereant and even the dogs got in the act. This was Zoe's 3rd time to see snow & Sam's second, but the first time either of them got to experience any accumulation on the ground.

All-in-all, it was the first true White Christmas for our area since 1926 and I will have a blast scrapbooking these pictures!

 

 

Oh Good Gravy! I've been sucked into the dark side....

And it's all Michael's fault!

He caved to peer pressure from "Da'Boys" today and joined Facebook. I've been holding out. Twitter & tweeting I've gotten into, but I really didn't want to join yet another time-sink.

So he joined up this afternoon and started finding all these people he knows. That's the part that has me afraid. I like my life now. High school was varying degrees of hell. College was somewhat better. Medical School, internship, and residency were all their own kind of specialness. And since then, if I really wanted to keep in touch with you -- well then I have tried to do so.

I'm in a happy place in my life right now, and I really don't like looking backwards. So with a great deal of hesitency I joined up too.

And found my MIL, SIL, BIL, my husband's extended family, one of my cousins, a couple of friends from medical school, most of my closest girlfriends from now, and wait for it.... my maid of honor (!) whom I lost touch with about 8 years ago [when residency seriously hit]. I got a laugh out of the suggested friends that Facebook finds for you. How exactly it does so is kind of a creepy mystery. The pastor for our church is on there. So is one of the lay-deacons who happens to be one of my neighbors. Another mom-neighbor around the corner is there, too. Strange, strangeness, to be sure.

So far -- no wackos, but it's only been about 5 hours.

The two friends I have from high school that I wanted to find; well no such luck as yet. Of course, the fact that my high school isn't part of the Facebook listing system, probably doesn't help.

In the meantime, I've been tinkering in the nuts and bolts of my blog, hopefully resulting in blogposts being cross-posted to Twitter and Facebook. Then I can "get three birds with one stone"!

In Honor of the Upcoming Holiday....

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Thought I'd share a little patriotic pride. The one time that Michael and I traveled to New York City we made a priority of spending a day at The Met. Since the museum is huge, we had to prioritize what we wanted to visit and this painting was Michael's top choice. It's mind-blowing how huge the canvas is in real life.

 

So check back, I have a few more "Red, White and Blue" surprises in store!

It's been quite the week....

As usual, just because I'm off from "paying" employment, doesn't mean that life slows down or gets dull. I'll have a pictorial "week in review" coming up because I've been playing with the new lens of course.

In the meantime, the highlights:

• Michael had his birthday on Monday. He spent the day doing computer tech support (which he actually enjoys - so it wasn't a hardship) and while he was gone I made up a batch of butterscotch bars, which barely lasted to Wednesday.

• I turned 39 on Wednesday and had a fabulously low-key day. Had a fantastic fondue dinner with Mrs. H and then Michael, Tab & Mrs K. joined us for dessert. Mrs. H surprised me with some cool birthday loot (pictures to follow)

• Tabitha had a fabulous snit going all day Wednesday because she's decided that rock climbing is "boring" and she wants to quit (2 weeks before Divisionals, naturally). So seeing as how neither she nor Michael remembered it was my birthday before they left the house; when she came home & continued to complain, I unloaded on her, to where she *knew* that "it wasn't all about her".... I was raised in the good Catholic guilt-trip tradition & I can guilt with the best of them - so she had done a complete change of behavior by the time she got dropped off at the rock gym. Interestingly, she was worried enough to call Michael at work to remind him it was my birthday, but he'd already called me earlier in the day - so he was off the hook.

• Weighed Sam on my baby scale and the moose gained 3.5 pounds in 1 week! "Holy House-Cats Batman!" What am I feeding the guy? Regular Purina puppy chow with a mix of the high grade stuff we feed Zoe. This week has found him starting to have a bit more energy to play, although Zoe still out runs him by a factor of 1:99. He's now able to run about 5 paces before he trips over his own feet. And sadly, his eyes have started to lighten up & occasionally have a green cast instead of the pretty lake blue color.

• Thursday was Career Day at Tab's school so I talked to 4 classes about being a Pediatrician. I took with me a bunch of my "doctor tools" like a pulse oximeter, blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, oto/ophthalmo-scope, etc and they loved it. Interestingly, they all had a morbid fascination with eyeballs & eyeball injuries for 3 of 4 classes. Tab's class was stone-cold silent. No questions. Sort of sad really, but I think the teacher had them all cowed into submission. The other three classes were all full of lively questions. My favorites were: "Have you ever seen anyone die?" [Answer: Yes. More times than I care to count.] "Is it true you have to cut up dead bodies to be a doctor?" [A: Yup. It's called Gross Anatomy] "What's the worst kid injury you've ever taken care of? [A: That'd be the 12yo without a helmet that rolled his ATV, crushed his face, destroyed his eyeballs, and then developed nasty draining sinus fistulas to the surface. Seriously gross.] I've wanted to do this kind of stuff for a long time, so I had an absolute HooT!

• Tab's feedback after Career Day was to tell me "Now I get why you're a Pediatrician -- You're actually really funny! I had no idea...."

• Then after Career Day it was time for the semi-annual teacher meeting to review Tab's ESL status. She places out this year & then will just be monitored. Amazingly, she took the TAKS test for 4th grade this year & passed 2 of 3 parts (Reading & Math). And she only failed Writing by 1 point. Against all expectations I might add. None of us thought she'd pass, so her teachers & Michael & I and even her were very happily surprised.

• Friday she got hit in PE & broke her glasses. I LoVe those calls from the school nurse that start out with "Hi Dr. E! I have Tabitha here & her glasses are in pieces on my desk...." Sigh.... I told her to just send everything home in a baggie & we'd get'em fixed after school. Third time this year. For the next school year, I'm just going to Walmart & getting 2 or 3 cheap pairs that can be rotated in & out of use. Also managed to get a huge drop-off to Goodwill and a trip through Sonic while it was still Happy Hour. Love That!

• Then Friday & Saturday was the never-ending saga of installing metal baby gates to the kitchen doorways. The dogs have been slowly trying to chew their way through the wooden ones & the rubber stoppers were slowly destroying my walls. So after visiting my brother's place recently and seeing his gates, Michael was on a mission to do the same. I found them on line. He ordered. They arrived on Thursday, and by Friday evening I had them up. One went great. The other one - not so good. Tab slammed the gate once & ripped the hinge out of the dry wall. "So help me Obi-Wan!" I put in a distress call to my brother [Wood Working God that he is....] and got his advice. Most of which required that I have a complete wood shop. Not so helpful. Instead, I wandered the hardware aisle of Home Depot, stared down all the burly contractor types giving me that "Are you lost Little Lady?" look, and found self anchoring screws. In the process of implementing what would have been an elegant solution, I found a metal [?!?] stud in the wall and with a tremendous amount of effort by Michael, finally got the hinge solidly mounted. Looks great, works great, cats & dogs adjusting, and another home improvement project off my list. Of course, that wall looks a little rough now because of all the "extra" drill holes.... Sort of resembles Swiss Cheese....I guess that's the next project....

• I'm still quite stoked about the fact that at the community pool we belong to, I took Tab & Miss E this afternoon, and while they played I swam 10 laps. Not bad for my first swim of the season. Turns out the length is really 25 meters, not 20 meters as I originally thought. Seriously. I'm impressed with myself. I've been working for about 4 weeks now to get myself better conditioned so that I could go back to indoor rock climbing with less chance of hurting myself. After I got cleared by Internal Medicine, Cardiology & Hematology at the end of April - I was ready to get to work. Later this evening, I took Zoe out for her walk and she & I did about two miles. I'm not really sure I can explain how HUGE an accomplishment this is, until you realize that literally 9 months ago today, I couldn't walk 20 feet without needing oxygen.

• This year & this birthday have me feeling very grateful to be where I am right now, and able to do what I can right now. I have definitely become much more of a "live in the moment" kind of person. And really, I think that's a good thing.

• And then tonight -- Eeep -- I'm so excited! -- the New Moon Trailer premiered at the MTV Movie Awards. In case you're a Twilight-er like me & need your fix -- go check this out! Honestly - I have no idea how I'm going to last until 11-20-09 when the movie opens. And Yes! I will be one of those seriously addicted people in line at midnight.... I may have to read all the books again! [That'll be for the 6th time....WaHoo!]

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer in HD

More to follow. I'm off again this week & have projects galore to get done before I head back to a full week of clinic x 2 in June.

Happy Birthday to You....

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday Dear Sweetie!! Happy Birthday to you!!

I love having a MIL who shares vintage family photos. That's how I got this one:

 

Didn't I marry a cutie!?! This was his second birthday and you can see that his chocoholic tendencies started very young. We celebrated at a Sunday group party and Michael was all about the chocolate pie (home-made from scratch by MIL!), which has to be his favorite.

And because I'll use any excuse to visit JibJab, this one is for you Babe!

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So he really does spoil me....

My birthday present arrived via Amazon.com a week early. But the best part, is that with a new puppy in the house, Michael's not making me wait until next week to play with my new toy:

 

Yup. Look & drool.... Heavens knows I have for awhile. This lens covers 18mm to 270mm and has image stabilization/vibration control. It's not tremendously fast, and the reviews out there knock it for "slow" auto-focus. But really, compared to what I'm currently using -- the reviewers "slow" is pretty quick for me. I was surprised by how much heavier it is, but it does have a lot of glass -- so the weight makes sense.

The beauty of this lens is that I can cover a huge amount of distance without having to switch lenses. I have a 18-55mm and a 27-300mm. At the climbing competitions, it has been driving me crazy trying to swap between lenses, while Tab climbs like a speed-monkey, AnD doing that while avoiding all the chalk that floats in the air.

So now, allow me to demonstrate some of the cool-ness with a few quick shots of Mr. Merlot: [These images are all straight from the camera - no editing & my color balance is off due to the compact fluorescent lights in my office.]

Here's 18mm: [Ignore the mess on my work-table. Review books arrived and general scrap-clutter is taking over....sigh....]

 

Here's 55mm:

 

And that used to be "all she wrote" for my standard lens. I'd have to rapidly "stop, drop, & switch". Now I just have to twist my wrist & I get this at 270mm:

 

Nice Huh!?! Yeah. I'm stoked. The puppies & I are going to play "photo shoot" in the backyard.