My Every-Day-Valentine

I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s Day… Sure, as a kid I loved getting those little “Sweethearts” candy with cute messages on it, but now I see it more as just another over-commercialized holiday. And from a couples’ perspective, I don’t really like how it seems like all the pressure is on the guy to do the wooing, gifting, romancing, etc. Too many women, I think, base their husband’s/boyfriend’s love for them on how well he performs on Valentine’s Day. I mean, c’mon, it’s just one day out of the year! My husband and I see Valentine’s Day more as just an excuse to go out and be with each other than anything else. Now before you write me off as a complete Grinch, please read on…

Now don’t get me wrong – I like flowers, cards, etc. from my husband just as much as any other girl. But why should the expression of love be limited to (or rather focused excessively on) only one day a year? Little things like chocolates and flowers are definitely nice every once in a while, but more than that I appreciate the day in and day out love that PC shows me. He is always kind, encouraging, gentle, and loving toward me. Whether it’s showing appreciation for the measly dinner I made, listening to my hormonal-driven rants and vents, washing the dishes after dinner (we don’t have a dishwasher), or just holding me whenever I just need him (even if it means not getting done as much studying as he would like), he is constantly showing his love for me. This, to me, is true love. And I am blessed beyond words to belong to my Prince Charming.

Now it would be a lie to say that we didn’t “celebrate” Valentine’s Day at all – We usually just keep it simple with dinner and an exchange of cards or something, but this year we decided to go all out and go to a really nice dinner at the Melting Pot (yes, this is about as fancy as it gets for us). With Baby coming soon we knew this would probably be the last time for a while that we would be able to enjoy an extravagant romantic dinner, so we just did it! PC actually had the entire day off of classes – we couldn’t figure out why in the world he would get Valentine’s Day off of all the holidays, but figured it had to do with Loyola being a Jesuit school maybe? At any rate, we’ll take it! So we had a wonderful, relaxing day together and that evening enjoyed a delicious, romantic dinner, and exchanged our cards (actually for Valentine’s and our anniversary he writes me the most romantic letters you can imagine. Yes, he is quite the eloquent Romeo with these letters and leaves me breathless after reading them). So even though I’m not the biggest fan of the holiday itself, I am a huge fan of being with my Every-Day-Valentine and will take any excuse I can get to do so. :-)

Medical Monday: Best Granola Ever!

So this Medical Monday I thought I would share the recipe I use for homemade granola – especially since in the last month alone I have made *cough* three batches of it. Granola is so yummy, whether you eat it with milk, yogurt, or just plain, but it also can get pretty pricey for the good stuff. So after searching around online (thank you, pinterest) I found this recipe  from wallflour girl, and decided to give it a try. My husband and I loved it! Since then, I have actually tweaked it a little bit and added some extra ingredients that we really enjoy, as well as using a little extra of the liquid mixture, which made it more flavorful, clumpy and granola-like. So here is my version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

9 cups oats

1½ cups chopped nuts (we like almonds)

1 cup sweetened coconut 
3 cups brown sugar 

⅔ cup water

1 cup vegetable oil

½ cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 teaspoons cinnamon
1-2 cups of dried cranberries (add more dried fruit if your heart desires!)

(The italicized ingredients make up the liquid mixture.)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly grease two 9x13 pans  (you could also put tinfoil in the bottom before greasing for easier clean up!).
Place oats, nuts, and coconut in pan, and mix well.

In medium saucepan, heat brown sugar and water until it just begins to boil.

Turn off heat, then stir in oil, syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon.

Pour over oat mixture and stir until evenly coated. Oat mixture should be no more than 2 inches thick to ensure optimal crispiness.

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until golden brown, stirring every 15 minutes.

Let cool and add in desired dried fruit. Store in air-tight container.

And there you have it! I was surprised at how easy it is to make (and how delicious!) I will definitely be making my own granola from now on! On a side note, I have tried a recipe with a honey base, but it lacked the amazing flavor this one has, so for now we’re just keeping to this recipe. 

Just this last week finished off a whole batch! So needless to say, I will be making yet another batch at some point this week. :-)

First Medical Monday!

This is my first time linking up to the Medical Monday Blog Hop (obviously posting a little late)! I am so happy to have discovered an entire network of women blogging their medical lives. It is so neat and encouraging to “meet” other women in the same/similar life situation as me.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday season with family and friends. My husband (whom I refer to as Prince Charming or PC) and I had a great time with our families back in the Pacific Northwest. As I’ve written of before I have missed family a lot as I have never really been away from them, especially my little brothers (who aren’t so little anymore), so it was nice to be able to spend some time with them. We basically spent a week at my family’s house and a week at my husband’s family’s house. It was so good to see everyone again!

While there we also had a baby shower as we are expecting in April. We asked for gift cards since we were traveling by air and wouldn’t have much travel space, but friends were very generous and in spite of bringing an additional bag ourselves, we needed to borrow another one from my parents! But we were happy to see a bunch of old friends and grateful for their generosity.

Getting home was also an adventure… We were scheduled to come back the Friday before PC started up classes again, thinking that it would be nice to have a couple days at home to rest up from our vacation (why is it that I always feel like I need a vacation after a vacation?) and get used to the 2 hour time change (I feel so old for saying that). Honestly, weather didn’t even factor into our decision to come home at that time. Well, let's just say that next year it will! Our flight Friday morning was cancelled due to the crazy winter weather at home in Chicago, and the soonest flight they could put us on was Sunday. So back to my parent’s house for a couple days. Come Sunday morning, and our flight was cancelled again and the soonest we could get a flight with that airline was Wednesday night! Well PC was supposed to start school on Monday and didn’t really want to miss three days of the first week, and by that point we were ready just to be home (2 weeks of living out of a suitcase is plenty). So we ended up switching airlines (paying extra of course) and getting a flight that was supposed to leave later that morning. Then that flight got delayed about 4 times. Finally though, we arrived home Sunday night, and our good friends picked us up, took us home, and even brought us dinner! As it happened, PC’s classes on Monday were cancelled due to the subzero temperatures, which was so nice because we had an extra day to settle down after all the business. I know I’m probably just a wimp when it comes to this kind of weather and the complications that come from it, but growing up in the Pacific Northwest I’ve just never had to deal with (or even think about) all the difficulties that a harsh winter can bring. I definitely have a greater respect for all those people who have lived with them their whole lives.

So needless to say, next Christmas we’ll be giving ourselves an extra couple days of leeway at the end of our trip. :-)

The End of the Beginning

Prince Charming finished his first semester!!! Last week was pretty busy with his studies, but this week has been nice with minimal late night studying (I think PC was just done with school) :-). Now it’s time for a much-deserved (and needed!) break. We leave this evening for a wonderful two weeks home with our families. I started to point out that PC is already 1/8 of the way to being a doctor, but that just seems depressing considering how long we have left. So I think I’ll stick to keeping track by the year. ;-)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Everything Blue!

In my last post I mentioned that we would soon learn if our baby is a boy or girl. Well, we’re having a boy! We had the ultrasound during my mom’s visit, so it was doubly exciting! I love getting ultrasounds (as I’m sure every other mom-to-be does); it’s just so neat to see life growing inside you, and watch him wiggle and move around. And it was amazing to be able to see the valves of his heart, his eyes, brain, fingers, and toes.

I was surprised at first when the ultrasound tech said we were having a boy because I felt that we were for sure having a girl (probably partly because I previously thought it would be fun to have a girl first). Now, I am SO grateful we’re having a boy! Having two considerably younger brothers, I know what to do with boys, and they’re pretty easy. When I was growing up I would have definitely been classified as a “tom-boy.” I much preferred playing GI Joes with my older brother over playing with dolls and the like (although I think I had a couple Barbie dolls), and I hated having my hair done and getting dressed up. I just don’t really know what to do with girls, and frankly, all of the princess stuff kind of drives me crazy. So I definitely think having a boy first is going to be easier for me.

It’s been fun starting to accumulate some of the bigger baby necessities! My mom brought their B∙O∙B stroller with her, which is still in great condition. I absolutely love the B∙O∙B! Also while she was here, we were randomly looking on craigslist for baby furniture (crib, dresser, and the like) and found a great deal on a crib (well, my mom found it for us – she is a craigslist guru). Thankfully we have plenty of storage space! Our second bedroom is currently occupied by PC’s weight set, but we’re looking forward to converting it to Baby’s room when the time gets closer.

Now we just can’t wait to meet him!

 

Baby on My Mind

Prince Charming and I are expecting our first child in April next year. We are so incredibly excited to start this next chapter! I think it is interesting that, when discussing with others the timing of when to have children during this long process to become a doctor, they would always assume that we would wait until after medical school to start our family. Well, PC and I have been married for a year and a half, and for the last year or so we had been planning on trying to conceive when we moved to Chicago. I totally understand those who prefer to wait until further down the road of the medical life, but that just wasn’t for us.

The main reason people gave to wait on children was of course finances. Babies are expensive–and they seem to get more expensive the older they get. However, we’re going to be “poor” throughout the four years of med school, and even when he actually earns a paycheck during the four-plus years in residency, it won’t be much. So that would put us at least eight years down the road, in our thirties, with only a dog or two as our family. Again, I’m not judging; this just isn’t for us. The truth of the matter is simply that there really is no good time to have a child. It will come with difficulties no matter what stage of life you’re in. So we figured we’d rather start early.

Along the line of finances, I have been researching a lot about ways to save money with a baby. My biggest find: Cloth diapers. It’s amazing how much money you can save just by using cloth diapers! I’ve seen a bunch of different figures, but basically from birth to potty training disposable diapers will cost about $2,000. Crazy, right?! And that is obviously per child. So imagine having two little ones in diapers at the same time and that quickly gets insanely expensive. For cloth diapering, depending on the system you use it can cost as little as $250 up to about $800 or so for the top of the line cloth diapers (which is still a significant savings!). And best of all, you can use your cloth diapers for the next child or two as well. So your savings multiply! I used to think that cloth diapering was only for environmental tree-huggers or ultra-conservatives, and although they are obviously better for the environment, that certainly isn’t the case. In fact, cloth diapering is becoming more and more of a trend among younger mothers. If anyone is interested in learning more about cloth diapering, I got most of my information from a cloth diaper vlog by Obbs and Lala. So, needless to say, I’m excited to get my cloth diaper stash and start using them on our little baby come April.

On a side note, and completely unrelated to the rest of this post, we get to find out if we’re having a boy or girl next Friday! We’ve had baby names picked out since way before I even got pregnant, so we’re eager to be able to start calling baby by name. My mom is also flying out next week for about five days and will be coming to our appointment with us. Thus, I am excited on all fronts for the upcoming week!

On Guinea Pigs

A sort of rite of passage for the medical student is dissecting a cadaver. For the medical wife I would argue that we also have a rite of passage: being the guinea pig when our husbands are learning the physical exam. Every medical wife knows exactly what I’m talking about. Your husband comes home excitedly and wants to look in all manner of orifices in your head. At that moment, you become a guinea pig.

In my case, I didn’t become a guinea pig suddenly. No, it was very gradual. My husband and I would be talking and then I notice him looking intently at my eyes in a suspicious way. Or we would be hugging and suddenly he would tug on my ear for a better look. Or we would be holding hands and he would look fixedly at my forearm and hand, while at the same time I can literally see him reciting the muscles in his head.

Then once they start learning how to use all their various instruments, you’re really in for it. I was just about blinded when he did an eye exam before PC realized he could adjust the brightness of his ophthalmoscope.  Then he would tug my ear in various directions trying to find my deeply embedded eardrum. Then of course, he had to look up my nose (that’s not embarrassing). And finally in my mouth (don’t do this after eating).

I actually genuinely enjoy “helping” PC in this way. So often I feel helpless as he stays up til all hours and rigorously studies, so it’s nice to help in this seemingly insignificant way.  So I embrace my guinea pig-ness and look forward to “helping” when I can.