Saturday, January 31, 2009

25 Things

1. My dad passed away in May 2003. It wasn't until the 2nd year of med school until I understood the entire pathological process of what killed him. Here goes: alcoholic cirrhosis-> portal hypertension-> development of new veins (esophageal varices)->delirium tremens (because he quit drinking)->nausea/vomiting->Mallory-Weiss tears of the esophageal varices->exsanguination. I have thought about him every single day since he died.

2. I'm not sure exactly which field of medicine I'll go into yet and I'm TIRED of people who aren't in the medical field asking me. I know you're trying to make conversation and don't know what else to talk about but there's so many other things! I am a person who does 100 other things - cooking, running, gardening, piano playing, movie watching, sewing, painting, drawing. Sorry if I seem bitter, but as a general rule med students don't like being asked questions they don't have the answers to. Also - please don't TELL me which specialty I need to go into. ESPECIALLY if you're not in the field. You have no clue what you're talking about. It's like me telling a CPA how to do my taxes. (Don't worry - I still love you all if you've asked and you're genuinely interested :) It doesn't ruin my day or anything, it just gets old after a while.)

3. On a lighter note - I love reading fashion blogs. There's a few I look at where people chronicle their outfits daily. If I lived somewhere else I would dress completely differently. I often have to tame down what I would like to wear on a daily basis because a lot of people wouldn't get it.

4. I tend to avoid confrontation. If you're in my way I'll probably just walk a mile to get around you rather than saying "excuse me," and walking by.

5. I think it's funny that my mom was homecoming queen and head cheerleader and I was one of the very few girls NOT invited to join the social club in high school. We had one called Vogue. It was like a sorority for high schoolers. Sounds dangerous right? I'm STILL glad I wasn't in it.

6. I feel like I have more in common with the people in my med school class who are from various states and went to dozens of different colleges than I do with people I went to high school with. See #5.

7. I genuinely LOVE everyone in my class. Okay there's a few that make me want to pull my hair out, but if they were suffering from anaphylactic shock I'd gladly stick them with an Epi pen.

8. I have the bestest seeser in the world. I love sitting at her and the bro-in-law's kitchen bar and talking while said bro-in-law proceeds to cook really yummy food.

9. My husband and I don't have that much in common on paper, but somehow we just work. He makes me laugh every single day - even if it's on the inside sometimes. A few things we agree on - vintage records, David Bowie, Elton John, Modest Mouse, Flight of the Conchords, and Wes Anderson movies.

10. I appreciate humor much more than beauty. Kathy Griffin is my all-time favorite comedienne. I think we were separated at birth even though she's 30 years older than me.

11. I love to sing - and don't think I'm THAT bad. I am stage shy though so the only person who's ever really heard me belt it out is Kris. If I'm driving, chances are I'm singing LOUDLY.

12. There's 3 people in this world that can complete my sentences - Kris, Julia, and my seeser, Jennifer.

13. I think everyone should live alone at some point, even if just for a few weeks. I did this senior year at Ole Miss when Julia went to England to study abroad. Even though I missed her, it was fabulous for a little while.

14. I am a major homebody. At the end of every test block ( a solid week of tests in med school that happens every 4-7 weeks) my class usually has a party. Last year I made myself go to most of them. I had fun 1x. I can think of nothing less fun at the end of a week of no sleep and stress than to go home and get gussied up to drive somewhere, plaster on a smile, and talk to all the people you just spent the last week in a room with (even though they're awesome), and then having to worry about how to get back home if you drink anything. I usually come home, drink a beer, take a nap, wake up and watch movies all night with the husband and animals.

15. Two of my favorite authors are David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs. I am not sure why I have so much in common with gay men who live in New York City. (Kris, do not insert a dirty joke here, even though it's the perfect set-up.)

16. I am a grammar Nazi.

17. I have had a job since I was 17. I put myself through college without a single student loan. I don't like taking money from anyone.

18. I am consciously aware that I am turning into my mother. This is especially obvious by the tone in my voice when I fuss at our dog Woodrow and by the way I putter around in the kitchen with wet hair and a robe on in the morning during the holidays just trying to get all the food together. I'm okay with it though. My mom is a wonderful lady.

19. I like challenges. I would love to train for the Chicago Marathon and run it one day even though I currently only average 2-3 miles on a run!

20. I think that we are all more alike than we are different. I wish more people would realize that. ERACISM. That is all.

21. If I had a personal chef or infinite free time I'd love to try being vegan for a while. It'd be interesting to see if it was worth it.

22. I care more about having a (relatively) clean house, healthy food, clean clothes, and time to exercise than I do about having good grades in med school.

23. I play on a tennis league with my sister 1 night a week in the Spring. (See #22)

24. I have a blog. www.seriouslysillygirl.blogspot.com

25. I take a bubble bath every single day. Showers suck.

Friday, January 30, 2009

So Ready

So ready for this test to be over. It starts at 1:30. I'll probably finish around 3:00-ish. I've already made big plans in my head. They include but are not limited to:

1. Going to J. Crew because they are having an INSANE sale right now.
2. Going to Michael's/T.J. Maxx to look for cute things to decorate my house.
3. Stopping by BOPS for a Snappy Turtle - because I have a free coupon. You don't really have to justify BOPS though.
4. Taking a long nap.
5. Exercise of some sort and perhaps cooking dinner.


I should start studying for the rest of the tests that are next week, but we don't have tests again 'til Tuesday and my brain is already FRIED!!!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Things to Do After the Storm

This is just a little note to remind me of what all I need to do after the next round of tests. We have our last Micro test this Friday, the Micro board next Tuesday, then Path, Pharm, Genetics, and ICM on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'm not so sure of the order just yet. Anyway, to do:

Find a dentist in the Jackson area. Make appointment. Get the teefies checked out.

Paint the living room. It's a little, er, bright for my taste. I was fine with it when we moved in, but after 6 months the blinding yellow and gold is starting to really irk me. Anybody want to come over for a paint party? I could provide snacks and margaritas. Maybe the margaritas aren't such a good idea. Don't want a bunch of drunk monkeys painting my living room.

Plant the 3 holly bushes I've had sitting in pots in my front yard since December.

Nail up the house numbers. We just realized our house is the only one on the street that doesn't have our address posted ANYWHERE - not on the mailbox or the house.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Largest Bat Colony in the WORLD?!?!

An almost pointless thing I learned while studying viruses for Microbiology tonight. Austin, TX hosts the world's largest bat colony. Bats are really big carriers of rabies in the US. So if your patient comes in foaming at the mouth or in a stupor and happened to have been bit (bitten?) by a bat in Austin, TX they might have rabies.

Peer Pressure

Ha ha. I kid. You will notice I've changed my background and title. I have a few lovely ladies in my class that also have blogs and have recently done the same. I didn't even know you could use these cutesy backgrounds 'til I saw theirs. I know - I'm slow. So anyway, I am a big old copycat and I jumped on the bandwagon.

I have actually been wanting to change the title for a while. "Seriously," while it does apply to countless situations I have and will continue to find myself in over the course of this thing that is my medical education, was getting kind of old. I signed up for that back in the heyday of Grey's. I think we can all agree that show has nearly jumped the shark. I will keep watching it though. I'm just THAT loyal. Ha.

As for "Chasing Zebras," all those in the medical field already know what that means. For those of you who don't, here's a brief explanation. Whenever you go in and get a history from a patient and then present it to your attending he/she asks for a differential diagnosis - a list of every possible thing/ most probable things that are causing the patient's symptoms. If they have a runny nose and sore throat and you throw out something like, I don't know, brain tumor or pheochromocytoma (an incredibly rare tumor on the adrenal gland that EVERYONE in med school is on the hunt for), then your attending will likely say: "Quit chasing zebras." If you hear hoofbeats - it's probably a horse, not a zebra.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Runner's Log

21 minutes - 2.1 miles + a 5 minute cooldown. Woot for 2 days of running in a row. It's really just another procrastination tool though. Shhh!!!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Runner's Log

15 minutes - 1.5 miles
because it was cold, my throat was hurting, AND I developed one of those horrible cramps right beneath my ribcage. 15 minutes is better than 0 minutes though!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Excitement

Kris has been lusting after a new iPod for a while now. Yesterday he broke down and bought himself a new nano. I've also been wanting a new nano even though my 5-yr old mini works just fine. Why, you ask? For the Nike + technology. It hooks up with a sensor you wear in your shoes while you're running and gives you info like how far you've run, calories burned, etc... It's pretty nifty.

The nano comes in 2 varieties. The 8G is $150 and the 16G is $200. That means it holds 2x as much music for just $50 more! So being the genius that I am I suggested to Kris that we just share the iPod. That's what marriage is all about, right? So we decided to go for the one that holds 2x as many songs. I think this will work out alright since Kris and I never work out at the same time - mostly because he never really works out. *I'm going to get in trouble for that one.* he he he.

I think he's mainly planning on using it next year when he's teaching *fingers crossed* during his off period. He can listen to some music while grading papers. I've just ordered the sensor online. It's reasonably priced at $29. The best part is the sensor fits in the sole of Nike running shoes, but if you don't have those you can get this nifty little $5 contraption that fits on any other type of running shoe and holds the sensor. So really for $35 + shipping of course I've just ordered a rejuvenating motivator to my current workouts. That, my friends is exciting.

In other exciting news I used my new crockpot for the 1st time last night and had amazing results. I'm not a big meat-eater. I like it, but I don't like buying it, cooking it, etc... It seems like whenever I cook anything other than chicken it comes out tough and dry.

Enter - the magical crockpot. I'm obsessed. I made a super easy recipe yesterday. It was just 1 big pork roast, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 6 oz orange juice concentrate, and 1 chopped onion. Let it cook on high for 3 hours, then low 3 hours. The meat fell apart when it was done. I was able to "cut" it with a spoon. I just served it over white rice for a simple dinner. I think next time I might add pineapple towards the end for a little extra oomph. It really was good though. I knew it when Kris and I both looked at each other at the same time and gave a thumbs up. (I was studying - or maybe watching Grey's Anatomy - in the next room. He was on the phone with iPod tech support.) This is how it goes sometimes at our house. We eat dinner at the table about half the time and in various other places the other half of the time. Also, if the world was on our schedule everyone would eat breakfast at 11:00, lunch at 3:30, and dinner at 9:00. They would go to bed at 1:00 or 2:00, and get up at 10:00. Ah, life would be ideal :)

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Don't Fret.

Don't worry. I figured out the meaning behind the mysterious slide. It was... on the next slide. My bad.

"Since 1987 there have been 50 candidate preventive vaccines for HIV-1, 30 candidate therapeutic vaccines for HIV-1, but zero have proven effective in humans."

This...












50 +30 = 0



is an actual slide from one of our microbiology lectures. What's even better is that the lecturer ran out of time to get to this one. I'm not sure why he ran out of time since he only prepared 162 slides to cover in less than 2 hours. IDIOT. There should be a 40 slide per hour rule.

I'm utterly perplexed as to what this could mean. Usually we don't have slides with such scarce information on them. For the most part the info is correct. I'll have to let you guys know if I ever figure this one out.

Is there any wonder microbiology is my worst class?

Monday, January 19, 2009

Did You Know?

Did you know that the reason Martha Stewart went to prison was due to an anti-cancer drug? It's a little drug known as Erbitux (Cetuximab is the generic name). Apparently she sold her stock in the company that was producing Erbitux the day before the FDA announced it wasn't approved. The really sad part? It turns out Erbitux was an effective chemo drug and it later went on to be FDA approved. Yikes...

Also, for those of you not in the medical field - when we are taught pharmacology in school we learn the generic names for drugs. That's because the trade names are always changing and there's all kinds of combo pills coming out now. So if you ask your doctor about a drug and they get a confused look on their face it's usually because they don't know the trade name. I've seen the residents look up several drugs of their patients and then go Oh... It's just lisinopril and blah blah blah. Just FYI...

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Runner's Log

25 minutes - ~2 miles, because I was lazy and walked some.

Also - while running and listening to a song called Tic Toc, I looked down and saw a container of Tic Tacs on the ground. Coincidence?

The Mysterious Case of Gran Torino

What a wonderful weekend it's been so far. So it hasn't been wonderfully productive, but it has been wonderfully fun. I hadn't been to the movie theatre in probably a few months unless there's a movie I'm forgetting somewhere in there. Then this weekend Kris and I ended up going twice!

I spent Friday getting things done around the house - making lists, going shopping, bringing stuff back home and getting everything put in its place. I had every intention of going over a lecture or 2 after that, but then Kris got home and I ran some errands with him. We dropped off his computer to get fixed and then we decided it couldn't hurt to look at the movie schedule. There's so many good movies out right now. The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button was set to play at 7:00. It was 5:00. So what did we do? We settled in at Chili's for a leisurely dinner. That means appetizers (Texas cheese fries - not on anyone's diet), dinner (don't worry I boxed up half of mine), and dessert (Chocolate Chip Molten Lava Cake - oh my freakin' gosh good). Then we went and saw the movie. I really liked it. Kris wasn't as impressed. It's 3 hrs long, but I didn't get bored. I thought the scenery was really nice, but I've decided it's because I grew up in a Victorian house and I just liked looking at the house in the movie because it's also Victorian.

So then Saturday rolls around and my bestie Julia is in town visiting her boyfriend. I met up with her and another friend for lunch at Primo's. It was de-lish. I got what I always get - the club sandwich. I'm never disappointed. Then we went to Northpark. Julia was on the hunt for a new pair of jeans. We all know how fun that is. It's particularly hard if you have hips AND a waist because jeans designers design for one or the other, but definitely not both. We both always have problems with our jeans gaping at the top. I've decided we should just find good tailors or learn how to take them in ourselves. Seeing as how I already know how to sew I could probably figure it out, but I just haven't gotten around to it what with that whole med school thing in the way. You know how that goes. After about 20 pairs of jeans at 2 stores she finally found the right pair. We also stumbled upon Nine West during a rare sale. They had several pairs of shoes for just $19.99. Lucky day! And wouldn't you know they had some flats that I really liked (and needed) and some tan alligator slingbacks that I also liked and needed. They're both comfy, go with anything, and I think I could even wear the heels without wincing in pain every 5 minutes. It was a productive trip to the mall for sure.

Then I went home, went over some breast pathology lectures, and made some potato soup (yum!). Julia called and we decided to do a double date and go see Gran Torino. Her significant other wanted to see My Bloody Valentine but we vetoed him. Poor thing. Gran Torino was really good, but so sad. I'm not giving anything away other than that. I was really disappointed with the quality of acting (other than Clint Eastwood's). I sometimes found myself laughing at inappropriate moments due to poor acting skills. It's still worth watching though.

And now it's Sunday. I really need to conquer some Pharmacology and Micro today but instead I'd rather play online and do laundry. I'm seriously about to look at some Pharm though. Really. Right now. Going to study. Yep. Not procrastinating at all.

Monday, January 12, 2009

The End of an Era

for Woodrow. I took him in this morning to be neutered. He was so excited to be at the vet and loved the whole car ride over. I felt pretty bad for him, but it was time. He had begun "marking" certain parts of the house. That's just a no-no.

Sometimes he's so good and other times he's so bad. Yesterday I was quite impressed with his behavior though. I took him for a walk and as we walked past the houses with dogs, they barked or whined. He did not. He generally ignored those dogs. He is not a "yappy dog" as my mama calls them. We may go a week without hearing him bark sometimes. When he does bark - watch out. He has what is called a "baying bark." Apparently that's what most hound or hunting dogs have. It starts as a bark and turns into a little bit of a howl in the middle.

He also ignored all the cats we walked past. The only things he doesn't ignore are scents. He'll catch a deer scent and want to follow it into the woods. For just 28 lbs. he is so strong. He nearly jerked my arm out of socket a few times!

Anyway, I'm hoping this surgery will calm him down just a little. He's just a tad bit too energetic for our tastes most of the time. One of our neighbors remarked that he looked like he was on speed as she saw him running laps around our house.

I guess we'll see how it all turns out. I know he'll get some pampering this afternoon - the "good" dog food that comes in a can and lots of petting. We bought him a new bed last week and hopefully he'll get some use out of it for the next few days.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Apparently

I really like folk music. Isn't it funny when you learn something about yourself and go 'doh'... I've always known immediately the songs I liked from the songs I didn't, but never really knew there was a trend. Well, to make a long story short, Little Miss Sunshine came on today and I immediately knew that I loved the opening theme. I went to iTunes to download it and discovered it's classified as "Folk." So I started snooping around at all the folk music and realized I recognized a lot of the artists and had some of their songs in my library. Anyway, here's a new guy I found today that I really enjoy and a link to his music:

Brett Dennen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwVyRH2B8A

And the link to the Little Miss Sunshine theme by Devotchka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbZM6ZSlvvY

Anyway - this Sunday morning has been fantastic so far. I meant to go to church, but ended up sleeping in instead. Maybe God will forgive me since I made it to the hospital by 8 yesterday morning. Just had to catch up on some much needed Zzzzz. I salvaged the morning by making blueberry almond muffins and coffee. Yum!

Kris is at a friend's house watching football so hopefully I can get some much needed study time in.

Hope everyone's weekend was fabulous :)

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Saturdays with Cloy

Like Tuesdays with Morrie. Get it? Ha. Anyway - today my preceptor partner and I went to "the Baptist" as the patients call it to get more experience and to take our first history. Of course it helps that we didn't even realize we were doing our assignment while we were working on it. A resident asked us to go in and finish a history he had started on a patient while we were there. Fortunately it was a very nice man (or was it a woman? You'll never know thanks to HIPAA. And yes that's how you spell HIPAA. I checked. ) who happened to know 2 of our classmates! It's such a small world.

We showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, sort of, at 8AM this morning dressed in our Sunday finest and white coats. My partner tried calling Cloy (our preceptor) who had told us he'd be at the hospital "around 8 or 9." Usually when someone says this to me it really means 7:30. So we got there at 8. Cloy didn't answer. I called 15 minutes later and he answered - very sleepily. Whoops... I woke him up. 2 of the things I hate doing the most are talking on the phone and bothering people. I had done both simultaneously. Awesome. It wasn't really a big deal though. He said he'd be in in an hour and told us to page a resident and tag along. Do we know how to page anyone? No. Did we figure it out real fast? Yep. We paged a resident and he miraculously showed up in less than a minute. I was impressed.

Then we basically hung out with the residents for a little while and got the run-down on all their patients that were currently at the hospital. They ate breakfast and then we rounded on all the patients. That was fun and a lot faster than I thought it would be. They said it was an unusually low amount of patients though, so that's nice. Cloy showed up at around 9:30 or 10. The residents were all really nice and taught us a few things in their spare time between patients. All in all it was a pretty good day. We left the hospital a little before 2:00 and I meant to go straight home and write up my patient's history while it's fresh, but that didn't happen.

I had to take a hot pocket and diet coke break and watch a little tv. Now it's 6:00 and I've been working on this history for too long. I hate how being a perfectionist or OCD, whichever I am, can make me take so long. I just want to get everything perfect and it's hard to get started on things in fear of messing them up. This is not a hard assignment and in just a few years we'll be doing several a day and just spending 10-15 minutes on them probably. There's just some pressure there when you know you're getting graded and you're trying to impress (or at least not embarrass yourself). Anyway - that's what I'm doing on Saturday night. Jealous?

Friday, January 9, 2009

Wise Words from my Preceptor

In my introduction to clinical medicine class we are assigned a preceptor to teach us various skills we will soon need such as:
how to take a thorough patient history
how to perform the necessary physical exam on a patient
how to choose a drug/drug regimen for a particular patient
etc, etc...

I had the opportunity to work with my preceptor some over the summer and then miraculously ended up with him as my assigned preceptor without even requesting him. (I think God's trying to point me towards family medicine or something) Anyway, he's really great to talk to because he got his MD at UMC and therefore understands what we're going through. His academic profile is a lot like mine. Never studied in high school and had really good grades, studied a little (the night before the test usually) in college and made it into med school, then hit med school, studied non-stop without the beautiful grades to show for it. So here's what he said yesterday that made me happy:

"Once I realized that the first two years were all a game and not about education, I quit worrying about my grades and bided my time until the clinical years started."

It's so true. You can learn 100% of the clinically relevant information for a test and then easily fail it. It's all about memory power and minute details. Some people have the gift of an other-worldly ability to memorize. Others don't. I most certainly do not - and that's just fine. I still have the ability to reason and understand which means I will be an okay doctor when I'm out.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

So Glad

that I'm in the class of 2011. I sat near a group of M1s (class of 2012) at lunch and they seriously talked about computer graphics and interface problems for about 20 minutes. Then they talked about their favorite cartoons. The shocker - 3 out of 4 of these people were girls. Yikes. I'm not really trying to be mean, but bless their hearts whenever I get around those M1s all I can think about is how happy I am to be in my class.

Now they're talking about organic chemistry. And I'm getting the heck out of here!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Hooray!

I have the pseudoephedrine at last! And it's working!!! I can breathe out of both my nostrils simultaneously!!!

The really great part is that I learned 2 drugs out of this whole deal. Sure, I was supposed to already know them. That's not important though. What's important is that phenylephrine is a pile of crap and a worthless antihistamine while pseudoephedrine rocks. You won't find that in the pharmacology book or class notes we're assigned.

Note to Self

Phenylephrine does absolutely nothing for my sinus congestion. Must rip off one of those pieces of paper at the pharmacy with some good old pseudoephedrine in the ingredient list, show id, sign a legal document, and still have the pharmacist suspect that I'm going home to make meth in my backyard. It will definitely be worth the trouble if I can manage to breathe through one or even maybe both of my nostrils after getting my hands on this banned substance.

Also

Might I add - I just realized that the adult dosing for Benadryl is actually 2 pills. Let's just say I got some much-needed recuperative sleep last night instead of hacking my lungs up and blowing my nose. Fabulous.

Hilarious

Watching the librarians scramble as one of my classmates asks them to help with their faulty printer system. They're freaking out. They actually had to leave their safe little cubbies and DO some WORK!!! I swear there's about 10 of them and I have no idea what they do all day besides complain when you actually ask them to be helpful.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Back in the Swing of Things

We went back to school to day. And what better way to say "Welcome Back!" then with 3 hours Gynecology lectures? I skipped out on the 8am - hey, I'm sick, remember? I was quite impressed with myself that I made it to the 9:00 on time. I even managed to pack my lunch and get it in the fridge at school before class started.

I'm pretty sure I had "strep throat" this past week. The reason I think that is because I definitely had pharyngitis - a swollen, inflamed pharynx and it was incredibly difficult and painful to swallow. In doctor speak this is dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) and odynophagia (painful swallowing). Sore throats are pretty common, but the painful swallowing is more of a hallmark of strep throat. It's caused by Streptococcus pyogenes and treated with penicillin or a z-pack. In hindsight I should have been treated, but hey - it was the weekend and I didn't have any obligation to study. Spending time in bed wasn't too difficult. Now the pharyngitis is gone, but I have acquired sinusitis - my sinuses are inflamed and producing tons of mucous. Yum... I'm pretty sure this combination is also referred to as "the crud." I have actually heard doctors refer to it as that - they were ER doctors though, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions there.

Kris is working at a different store this week. His higher-ups have decided he is "management material" and are giving him a one week trial run at the Game Stop in Flowood. I really hope he gets it since that means a salary and benefits, plus more control over his work schedule. He found out he can't actually start teaching until August (just a requirement of the teaching classes he's been taking), so he's glad to have the opportunity to do this until then. He still has 30 observation hours to complete in the classroom and then he can start looking for a job. Hopefully he'll find one near us - Northwest Rankin, Madison Central, any of those would be great. We'll see though.

Anyway, I now have 143 days till the dreaded STEP. I am off to study land.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!

2009 is here and today I am attempting to get organized and ready for it. I started cleaning up everything Christmas-related on the 26th and I am STILL putting it all away. I have to make another trip to Wal-Mart today for one of those giant Rubbermaid bins.

There's rooms to be swept, rugs to be vacuumed, laundry to be laundered, and dishes to be washed. Plus there's always exercise to be done since it's the obligatory time of year for that sort of thing. I'm thinking yoga tonight since I'm battling a pretty nasty "cold" right now. Running is out with the sore throat and the fact that my head pounds every time I move it too quickly. Kris has this "cold" too, but unfortunately for him he has to go to work.

We both felt like crap yesterday but had planned on going to Bonefish with a group for the last 2 or 3 weeks so we put on our grown-up pants and went. Julia made reservations 2 weeks ago for 8:00. We got there promptly at 8:15 of course and the place was PACKED! There was standing room only and every 5 seconds you had to move in order for someone to scoot by. It wasn't looking good. But after an hour and a half we finally got our table that we had reserved. Kris had a NY strip and I had Lily's chicken (spinach, goat cheese, artichoke hearts) and garlic whipped potatoes. The food was great. We sat across from Hannah and J.R. - Julia's sister and brother-in-law. They live in North Carolina and have been listening to a David Sedaris book on cd which I happened to get for Christmas so we had plenty to talk about. All in all it was a fun night, but when 11:00 rolled around and they were headed to the actual party we were both exhausted. We went home, put on our pajamas, and got in bed. We didn't really intend to fall asleep before the new year, but of course we did.

Mom's headed to our house right now to give us our Christmas presents. I think that's a great way to start off the new year :)