one year.

August 9, 2009. We got married.

September: Hiking and relaxing.

October: best Halloween costumes ever. I wore my grandmother's fur and Ethan wore a blouse I bought two years ago for an 80's party (we were Eurotrash).


November: we saw La Boheme in Austin

and traveled all over Texas and to Colorado for residency interviews.

December: Honeymooning in Paris! Our first Christmas together.


January: New year's day walk to the Eiffel Tower.

and we went to the Rodin Museum.

February: I made Ethan the biggest birthday cake ever, and we had a snow storm in Dallas!



March: My niece Win is born.

while my sister was in the hospital, we got to take care of Anna at my mom's house.


April: we went to Austin for Easter and made a trip to the Salt Lick.



May: we moved into a little house, and went to Austin to see my little sister graduate from UT Plan 2 Honors. we also stopped by Mount Bonnell. Ethan also graduated from UT Dallas, but he chose not to walk so I don't have any proof by pictures.




June: I graduated from Medical School.



July: I started work at Parkland. I worked my butt off at the hospital. I made six pepper jelly and got a pedicure, and worked about 350 hours. There are only 744 hours in the month of July, meaning that I was awake and at work roughly 2-3 times as much as I was awake and at home.



August: we celebrated our anniversary early because I'm on call the day of our wedding. Cafe Madrid followed by darts at the Gingerman (whoever decided that giving people beer and sharp missiles at the same location was probably not the smartest guy who'd ever lived.)

makes me feel better

Nothing completely eliminates the stress I feel from work, but this sure helps a lot:

 

This may have to be a monthly occurence. partially because I can literally not find time to even clip my own nails. Okay I know that's a weak excuse for needing a monthly pedicure, but how about the fact that I felt really good afterwards?

six pepper jelly

After I graduated college, I had 6 months off to do whatever I wanted to do. So I took my extremely expensive Duke degree and went to work as a server in a gourmet market/restaurant named Foster's. One of the things that they had for sale there was a seven pepper jelly, which was so wonderful. It was good as a spread over cream cheese, it was good as a marinade on chicken, or even on sandwiches. I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to take some of our garden produce and make a six pepper jelly. It wasn't seven because I ran out of ideas for different kinds of peppers.

Recipe:
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
a handful of jalapeno peppers
4 or 5 banana peppers
paprika
crushed red pepper flakes
6 cups of sugar
1 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
1-2 packets liquid pectin.
Jars for canning (will make 6 half pints with a little left over for immediate eating)

How to make:
1)slice all peppers(except for those in dried form). remove seeds unless you want some spice (In retrospect I would have left more seeds in).
2)Place all the peppers in a food processor, reserving 1/2 of red bell pepper. Pulse into a pulp.
3)place pepper pulp into pot (hee hee)and add vinegar, water, and sugar.
4)slice up reserved red bell pepper half into a fine dice, and put into pot (this just makes it a prettier jelly).
5)add dried peppers to pot, bring mixture to a boil, and let boil for about 6-8 minutes.
6)add certo and let boil for another 1-2 minutes. one packet of certo will make for a less firm jelly (if you want to pour it over something), two packets will make it a more firm jelly.
7)put into sterilized jars and boil the jars in hot water to seal them.


I think next time I may add some cayenne to give the jelly a little more kick (And to make it a seven pepper jelly!)

The last step is to have an extremely patient and giving husband who will clean up after you when you make a mess and the kitchen is all sticky because lately, I have just enough energy to make a mess, and not nearly enough to clean my own up. But I do make him home-made jellies so I guess it's a fair trade!

pickled peppers

Ethan introduced me to eating ceviche. before we met, he was already practically a connoisseur, and had a ceviche cookbook. One of the things in the cookbook was home-made pickled jalapenos. The first time we made these we were converts- no more of those limp little store-bought pickled jalapenos for us! these are crunchy and just a tiny bit sweet and salty. here's how to make them:

get about 8 jalapenos and 2 shallots. if you don't have shallots, you can use a small white onion and a clove of garlic.
slice the jalapenos into thin slices (I added some banana peppers that needed to be used up in this batch)
The shallots or the onion+garlic need to be minced fine.
combine the shallots and jalapenos in a large jar. sprinkle over about 2 Tablespoons of salt and 2 of sugar. pour white vinegar over mixture to cover. let sit at least a day before eating.


And yes, I intentionally used the grocery bag as a backdrop so you would think we were fancy. our real relationship with Whole Foods is that we go and eat their samples and then I buy a few of their "under $10" section bottles of wine. so now you know.
most of our groceries really come from ALDI.

holy mid-century classic, batman!

Today after I got off of my 30 hour shift, Ethan drove me home, and I took my post-call nap, I got up and took Ethan to the thrift store. Something about going to thrift stores and finding the one thing that is there that is not absolute crap, then giving it a home, is so satisfying to me. especially today.

I spied these in the furniture section of Garland Rd Thrift, and said to myself "we need a desk chair, and those are cute. I think I'll get one of them!" it was comfortable, so I did the next logical thing- flipped it over and looked at the tag on the bottom. it said "knoll international". My heart started beating a little faster. I googled knoll international chair from my iphone and discovered that the chair I was sitting on was actually one of those fancy iconic modern classics that's actually named after someone! They are Pollock executive chairs.

And they retail for around $1300 each. Unless you buy vintage ones at Garland Road thrift, where they retail for $19.19 a piece. So we got both. And now we have the ultimate accessory of the over-educated white person's home, a chair with a name.

Life

Life has been hectic. I started residency on July 1. Since then I've worked about 120 hours (I mean... of course I'm only working 80 hours per week! I'm totally within my limits!) Yesterday I found myself in bed at 10 pm with no recollection of how I got myself there. I am just really, really busy, and really, really tired. And despite being at work pretty much all the time, I still don't feel like I'm doing enough. I know for a fact that I'm forgetting things at work and not providing the best care for each and every patient. but when I'm trying to manage 21 patients and I've got to see them and write notes and order labs and do all of the bullshit paperwork and return pages and console patients who didn't get operations as soon as we told them they would, AND occasionally going into the OR to actually operate, It's hard to even remember which patient is which, let alone providing them with first quality care. So I leave most days with the nagging feeling of not having done everything. And I get home to Ethan and it's all I can do to stay awake long enough to have a conversation or eat dinner with him. Ethan has started driving me to work on call days so that I don't have to drive myself home after being up for 31+ hours straight (gotta love a husband who is willing to drive his wife to work at 4:30 in the morning).
I really hope this starts feeling easier soon.