Mine was a grey, snowy weekend filled with football and work. And BenGay.
Here, have some bullets:
* My butter dish has disappeared. It’s glass. It normally sits on top of the toaster oven (not an ideal spot for BUTTER to live, but such is life in a postage-stamp sized kitchen). But one day I noticed it wasn’t on the toaster oven… And assumed it was in the dishwasher… And then when I unloaded the dishwasher, it wasn’t there. My husband has no idea where it is. I have no idea where it is. Neither of us has any recollection of it breaking. And we can’t find it anywhere.
Consequently, I am now having paranoid thoughts of our maintenance people breaking into our home in the middle of the night and stealing small and fairly unnoticeable items just to screw with us.
* I got a very nice showing of Holiday Card Love this year At least 30 cards from friends and loved ones! That is a record! I received most of them AFTER Christmas, since my husband and I were out of town for Actual Christmas. But it was so fun to open up our mailbox and find this huge bunch of cards.
Here. Look at some of them:
My apologies for the pathetic and boring backdrop. They really look quite festive in person. (Also, WHAT is that white dot in the foreground? If I had better photoshop skillz I would totally erase that, as it is Driving Me Nutso.)
I especially loved the cards that had pictures of cute babies. We got seven of those. I have come to the conclusion that our friends make reeeeeaaaalllllllly cute babies.
* What is one supposed to do with holiday cards after the holidays? It seems a little silly to save them, especially the ones that are just plain holiday cards with a signature. But the ones with the babies on them… Well, I have a harder time getting rid of those.
Did I mention how CUTE the babies on them are? You can’t really tell from this photo, but they are CUTE.
All seven of those babies were just born in 2010, so this was the first time they’d made an appearance on a holiday card. That seems momentous, somehow. Okay, more momentous for their actual parents… But I still don’t want to throw them away.
* The Great 2011 Dishwasher Experiment is going great! So far, it’s been a rousing success. I just toss the dishes in the dishwasher – fretfully, of course, because it is ME we’re talking about – and run the dishwasher and voila! All the dishes are clean!
It’s kind of amazing. Both that the dishwasher can do this, and that I have been doing it WRONG for so many years.
* I finally jumped on the Hunger Games bandwagon and read the first in the series. It took me a few hours one night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean, it’s not fine literature or anything, but it was solidly written and the plot was strong and the main character was complex enough (read: annoying) to seem pretty real. I am definitely going to finish the series.
* Speaking of series, it seems that most of the books I read this year were part of a series. I read a couple of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books… I read a TON of Sophie Hannah books, which are a series about two detectives named Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer… I read Stieg Larssen’s Millenium trilogy with much vigor… I read all three of Tana French’s books, which aren’t a series per se, but which each introduce the protagonist of the next book (well, I HOPE that’s what the last one did, but there’s no book to follow it quite yet). That’s a lot of series. But I LOVE them. It’s to the point where I will read ANY books if they belong to those series. They are all SO GOOD.
Let this be noted by any would-be authors out there. If you can write a series that your readers enjoy, your marketing is practically done FOR YOU.
* Since I am already on the subject of books, this is a good time to note that my next book club meeting is coming up in a couple weeks. It is notable because I’m hosting this month’s session. This means that a) I have to clean my apartment, including taking down the Christmas decorations (Yes, they are still up. WHAT?) and b) I need to figure out what to make for dinner.
I think I’m going to cook coq au vin because a) no one else has served it at a previous book club and b) because I’ve made it before and know that it’s doable and good and c) because it’s something I can mainly cook before people arrive, leaving me free to simply stir and drink wine when the book clubbers get here. Also, it sounds fancy and tastes delicious and requires two entire bottles of zinfandel.
Yummmmmmmmm…
Yes, that’s what I’m going to cook. Unless I’m struck by any other super wonderful revelations in the meantime. I will also serve a salad, because I can prepare that ahead of time.
* I feel like I’m very boring lately, blog wise. It’s because the biggest thing going on in our lives is fellowship applications. And while that offers lots of blog fodder – The expense! The stress! The endless waiting! The travel! – I am feeling too superstitious to talk about it a lot. My husband has several interviews so far, and I hope he gets more, but you never know… And since this is a match process (like residency) but with each program having far fewer openings (think two or three rather than 100), it’s very scary to even imagine what my husband’s chances are, let alone spell it all out on my blog.
We’ll see if I can find a way to write about it that doesn’t terrify me and is more than a small bullet point in a longer blog entry.
* This weekend, my husband and I enjoyed some Simultaneous Back Pain. We even bought some BenGay the other day. BenGay. NOTE: We are neither athletes nor 85.
I am HOPING that this isn’t our 30s (well, my impending 30s) jumping up and saying, “Hello there! You are old now! Have some back pain so that you can’t help but think of your highly advanced age at all times!”
If I were to blame something other than our fourth decade, it would be our bed. I don’t know why, I suppose I just need something I can blame that I can presumably DO SOMETHING about. We did try flipping it over, which we do too infrequently, in hopes that we had just worn a pocket into the mattress over time that was affecting our sleeping positions. But that hasn’t seemed to make any difference.
This is not a new mattress; I bought it waaaaaaaay back in 2003 when I started grad school. Maybe the mattress is just old? I guess I thought that mattresses lasted 10 or 15 years or even longer. But maybe I am wrong. And/or maybe I was so pleased by my incredible deal on brand-new queen mattress that I am reluctant to find out what a mattress costs when you don’t buy it from a girl you used to cheer against in high school.
* This weekend, my husband and I had dinner with two friends and their small baby. (Really small – he’s only seven weeks old!) The whole hanging-out-with-babies thing is very new for us. These are our first friends in close proximity to have a kid. So it was kind of a New Experience type of night. It’s not like the baby DID anything of real note; he looked around and smiled a lot at the beginning, but by the time we got to the restaurant, he was asleep in his car seat and stayed asleep all through dinner.
He was lying there, so sweet and doll-faced, fast asleep, and I felt a little bit like maybe this is something my husband and I could do. But then after dinner, once we’d parted ways, I got all panicky thinking about us having a baby, like it was some crazy wild idea. I mean, it’s hard enough to think of our FRIENDS as parents… It’s practically impossible to imagine myself and my husband with a tiny baby of our own.
I’ve been feeling this way for the past year or so – one second, totally charmed by the vision of us with a little one of our own… the next, completely freaked out at the thought and fully relieved that we don’t have one.
I’m assuming that SOMEDAY I will stick with one emotion or the other, yes? I’m sick of these wildly-swinging, violently-opposing feelings.
But that baby sure was cute.
* * *
Well, Internet, that’s what’s on my mind this cold Monday morning. What’s going through your brain of late?
Also, where in the wide world has my butter dish disappeared to? For Pete’s sake. It didn’t just grow legs and walk away!
Just wanted you to know that I love bullets, so keep ’em up and don’t feel like you don’t have anything to say! Isn’t that the story for all of us, really? 🙂
Ok – I have very WEIRD ritual in finding things that are lost – when I was a kid, someone told me to pray to St. Anthony the Saint of missing things or something. I have no idea why he is the Saint of missing things, but I swear the rhyme works!
So – repeat after me: St. Anthony, St. Anthony look around. Somethings lost and it can’t be found……
I will usually sing this around the house a few times, and then things pop up a few days later. Very strange.
Oh the dishwasher…my boyfriend and I constantly battle about this. So much so that I don’t want to be in the room while he is rinsing every bit of food off the plates before they go inthe dishwasher. It KILLS me.
Coq au Vin- AMAZING. so delicious and relatively easy.
As for back pain, I feel you on that, though I am about half a decade younger than you. Lots of lower back pain is caused by tight muscles (hamstrings, quads, hip flexors, IT band etc etc). Have you ever used a foam roller? They are crazy amazing. (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=foam+roller). its literally a foam cylinder and you can roll parts of your body. I’m sure there are great videos on youtube on how to use them. I LOVE the foam roller.
Oh Babies- They are so cute. And lovely. I love babies. But then, then grow into kids. Annoying, yelling, needy kids. And teenagers. ugh. I can’t deal with that. Until I can stomach parenting a teen-ager I’ll stick with holding other people’s babies.
YES, this is how I feel about babies. I can see myself in possession of a cute cuddly infant or toddler, but NOT a school-age child or teenager. If I’m not ready for the whole package, I’m not ready, right?
Your posts are not boring at all! I love a good bulleted post on a Monday morning!
I hear you with the back pain and I guess we are all old…? At a rickety 28 years of age, I also own a tub of Icy Hot.
Good luck to the husband with fellowship apps too! We’ll all think good thoughts, prayers, etc. for him, so you don’t have to write about it if you don’t want to! I can imagine the application process is a PAIN, but on the upside, the end is in sight!
Do not get me started on babies. So cute! So cuddly! I seriously may end up going into pediatrics because I’m that crazy stranger who wants to hold and/or play with your baby.
I’ve been reading for your blog for a couple months, and this is the first time I”ve commented. I too am a doctor’s wife. I told my husband I was reading your blog, and he said “What does she talk about?” I said, “I don’t know really….. just things”. Then I read him a couple samples of things going on in your blog (including the dishwasher). He asked the result of the dishwasher test…. told him that you were in the process of determining. He will be shocked to hear your results.
Well, if he asked me today what you wrote about, I would tell you….. she writes exactly what I am thinking. What to make for friends when they come over, I should really take the christmas decorations down, should I have a baby/should I now. Seriously, get out of my head.
You may think that you have nothing really to report/or that it is all random, but I am here to inform you, that someone else is going through the same things today.
Aww thanks, Molly! And welcome! It’s always nice to “meet” another doc’s wife.
Ok, a disappearing butter dish is WEIRD. I’m not sure that I have any advice, but my husband also swears that a prayer to St. Anothy works- guess it’s worth a shot!
You are not boring at all. Don’t ever worry about that.
And the baby thing? Trust me, even when you decide you’re ready for kids, you’re still going to be terrified and still question your decision to bring a squirming, crying monster into your house–but 1) You’ll know when you’re ready enough and 2) It’s TOTALLY worth it!
L’s adorable cheeks to the contrary, I am still suspicious!!
Go buy a new butter dish because then you will immediately find the old one. At least that’s what usually happens to me.
I never got over the fluctuating emotions about having a baby, but it got to a point where 51% of the time having a baby sounded like a good thing.
I throw away Christmas cards. Saving them seems like a nice idea, but I never get around to storing them nicely.
Agreed about buying a new butter dish. That’s gotta be some variation on Murphy’s Law, which I find applies in my life just about as often as the Law of Gravity. Maybe buy a fancy one or something so that you’ll be glad that you have them both.
You could always use the extra butter dish to store the cards in.
I have a Christmas basket that I put all the holiday cards in. Every year, I go through the entire pile and throw away old ones if I can’t remember the person who sent them to us or if the card is boring. I love this because it means I look through all our holiday cards each year and see all the little kids grow up. So I have years worth of cards from the same families and it is awesome.
Is the butter dish accidentally in the fridge or cupboard? My fingers and toes are crossed for the fellowship applications! 🙂
I hear you with the fellowship applications. We went through that process a year ago so I can appreciate all the stressors involved. This year it is examination forms. Does it ever end, haha?
Good luck!
I spent most of 2004 trying to get pregnant (not as much fun as you would think after the first month or two.) You might say I was a bit obsessive in my desire to be pregnant. December 18, 2004, two pink lines showed up.
My first thought: YES!!!!
My second thought: WHAT HAVE I DONE????? And I had that thought until the kid was born. I still think that sometimes. But you get used to having the babies around. 🙂
Buy a new butter dish. Throw away the receipt. The butter dish will show up a few minutes later.
I am also in a superstitious frame of mind about things I cannot talk about, let alone put on my blog. Fingers crossed for all of us.
I love seeing Christmas cards in houses, and with babies on them, it’s even better! Don’t feel bad that they’re still up. 🙂
I use Christmas cards as bookmarks throughout the next year. I LOVE it! Christmas makes me feel good AND seeing happy friendly faces makes me feel good. SO, it’s all around good to save em! Honestly, I don’t know what to say about the butter dish. It just doesn’t make sense!
BenGay also makes these amazing patches – I bought a package this weekend after I twisted my shoulder in an unfortunate way and they work wonders. Sad sign that I’m 26 and superfamiliar with these products.
I am so glad you don’t know what to do with your cards after the holidays either! I am simply at a loss. I don’t want to throw them away- but what the heck am I going to do with them? If I save them does that mean I am horder?
Ultimately, any with pictures I put up on a big bullitan board in our office, the others got tossed 🙁 But I sure was sad about it.
I big-time heart Tana French! I read Faithful Place this summer over the course of 2.5 days, sneaking in chapters at my desk when I hoped no one was looking. I was majorly disappointed in the ending of In the Woods, though — so much so that I e-mailed Tana herself to ask if her next book would clear up the plot holes. Hussy never wrote back. But I still devoured The Likeness and then Faithful Place.
Just took down my Christmas decorations this weekend. I had been dreading it. I set my kitchen timer for 1 hour and made myself get the damn tree down before it went off. I then unceremoniously flipped through the cards and threw them all in the recycling bin.
YES, In the Woods was good but so disappointing!!! I hold out hope that eventually we’ll come full circle back to that story to find out what happened.
(I feel like Tana’s got to KNOW what happened, right? I mean, do you create a Giant Plot Line without knowing the resolution?)
The Likeness was my favorite of the three. Faithful Place was good, but I knew the culprit from the beginning. Not an unsatisfying way to read a book, but I like it when a writer can really shock me.
My thoughts:
In the Woods = super suspenseful plot line, terrible ending. Foul feelings about the ending overshadowed all the great things in the book but I still enjoyed it.
The Likeness = ridiculously unbelievable plot line but SO FREAKING GOOD. I took this book on honeymoon and tried my best not to ignore my handsome new husband while getting completely sucked into this badboy. Really loved it even though it required major suspension of disbelief.
Faithful Place = not as suspenseful but better thought-out characters and a more “literary” feel. I think it’s the most neatly wrapped up of the three novels but she could have trimmed maybe 50 pages. Still excellent, though.
I heard that her fourth book is going to focus on Scorcher Kennedy, who made a brief appearance in Faithful Place. For the life of me, I can’t remember his character. But I will pick up the book the second it hits the shelves. Tana French is addictive. And I love talking about books!
I feel EXACTLY the same about all three. One reason I loved The Likeness so much was that the premise was so weird. Unbelievable, but in such a way that I didn’t question it (a lot). Then again, I was fully okay with the Time Traveler’s Wife too. So I guess suspension of disbelief isn’t that difficult for me!
RE: Scorcher – I think he was the tight-ass homicide detective who thought that Frank was such a loose cannon? But I could be wrong.
In any event, I don’t even care. I just want to read the next one!
My husband makes the exact same argument about the dishwasher. I said fine, I’ll just throw everything in there!
One day he pulls out a glass. He notices something green.
“What is this”
“OMG I think it’s broccoli bits”
I had boiled some broccoli and just threw the pot in the dishwasher. It must have magically traveled up to the top rack and secured itself to the bottom of the drinking glass.
I’ve found bits of dried food in between the tines of a fork, and once rice stuck to a plate. I still lightly pre-rinse. You can’t stop me!
We aren’t sure if the dishwasher is just too weak to handle extremely dried on items.
Your book club sounds like fun!
I had horrible back pain for an entire week, and it even made it difficult to breathe for a bit. Mine was due to bad habits of not siting up straight at my computer, which I spend a lot hours at, and I am neither an athlete or old (by most standards) so you’re not alone! Sleeping without a pillow helped me.
Best of luck with the fellowship applications! I hear you about the stress and the travel and the waiting, I feel like that’s the story of our life in his quest to become a physician scientist!
Good luck on the applications!
You took my feelings about kids right out of my head. I mostly feel that I am not even close to wanting them. I don’t ever hear a ticking biological clock! (But I’ve learned not to tell this tidbit to my mom or boyfriend’s parents, because they are concerned about grandbaby potential!) Sometimes they are super cute though!
Wonderful post….and I understand the residency and match thing. STRESS. I just feel blessed that my husband finally graduated from the what is it….like 28th grade. Now we are rich….not. And I don’t have anything to say on my blog either!
“Now we are rich… not.” Heehee!
I am missing our tupperware butter dish. I like it because it has a lid. It just vanished out of thin air.