Saturday, February 28, 2009

Shiny Happy People

I guess not every post can be all bubbles and sunshine.  Warning: this is not a cheery "here's what I'm doing these days" post.

I got home this evening and had to finally admit to myself that today was pretty darned hard.  Not busy-and-I-can't-catch-up hard.  No, today was emotionally hard.  Start off with a five hour headache brought on by shoulders that were tight when I woke up and add torturing an overwhelmingly painful patient while maintaining professionalism and a positive attitude of "we have to do this for your own good."  I managed to fool myself into thinking today was a good day all the way home, listening to my classical cello music and thinking about other things.  Then I get home an immediately alienate the one person I can turn to in times of stress, break down in tears (always a winner with the gents) and retreat to the bathroom.  I thought I was crying because I picked a fight with the most important person in my life, but all I could see in the darkness of the bathroom (who wants to see themselves in the mirror during a crying fit?) was the pain-ridden expression on my patient's face, and as my sobs exponentially increased the throbbing of my head, I realized that I'd been deluding myself as I wore my "everything is fine" professional attitude all the way home and into my private life.  I realized how important it is to turn the "fine fine" off when the day is done and sometimes just allow myself to mourn for the pain and loss of others.

Of course, it helps when you don't have to do it alone.

I'll write a more cheerful post soon, I promise.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Weekend of indulgence

So on Saturday, James took me to:


Oh yeah!  We went to a fabulous lecture by a rep from E. Guittard about single origin chocolate, and of course they had samples!!  The rep talked about how the environment and growing conditions affected the end-taste of the chocolate.  Since they mostly process chocolate for high-end pastry chefs and such, they don't add flavors like the types of chocolate bars you see in the grocery store.  It was amazing to taste the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) differences in chocolate, simply from where it's grown.  By the end of the day, James said he was sick of chocolate.  I wouldn't say I was sick of it, but definitely satiated for a few days!

Then, on Sunday:
Superbowl XLIII!  Steelers vs. Cardinals.  I won't go into a play-by-play, but there were a few awesome plays that even got me into the game.  Of course, having some friends over to share pulled pork sliders, mini-cupcakes, Cheetos, Doritos, and a football field of Rice Krispy square rounded out my weekend of indulgence quite nicely.

Drat that cat!

I laid out the squares for a baby quilt for my cousin Andrea's baby (or rather, one of them, I already finished the other quilt for the other baby!)

A picture speaks a thousand words.  Here are the before and after pictures of Hurricane Hamlet.