she's writing, she's writing, she's writing a novel

So I love books. I have always, always loved to read. Though now I have to intersperse novels with some intense non fiction (for example, I am on page 73 of "Equine Neonatology Medicine and Surgery") I still love to read, and need to read at least a few pages before I go to bed every night. You could call it an addiction, I'm ok with it.



In any case, even though I love books so much, I often get overwhelmed in libraries and bookstores. I want it all...or do I? Is any of this good?

Which is where this amazing website http://goodreads.com comes in. It has reviews of almost every book ever written, and you can scroll through lists of books and add them to your "want to read" or "read" lists. You can also write your own reviews of books. I print my list of "want to read" books before Adam or I go to the library. I realize I am a giant nerd, but whatevs! This site is awesome!

PS- just read Peace Like a River, which was undeniably wonderful and uplifting. But if you join goodreads, you'd know that cause we'd be friends and you could read my reviews and see my lists.

with a boulder on my shoulder and feelin kinda older

I can't believe a year has gone by. What an exhausting, exhilarating, educating, humbling, amazing year. Thanks to all my family, friends, clinicians and internmates who helped get me through it. Thank you to my patients who taught me so much. And thank you most of all to Adam, my breakfast maker, fantastic listener, and love of my life.

If that sounds like an Oscar speech, so what. Finishing an internship and moving on to a residency is probably as close as I'll get.

Thanks to my wonderful cousin Laura, Adam and I found a place to live in West Sacramento! It has a yard and fruit trees and a patio. It also has a spare bedroom, so feel free to visit. We're moving via a POD, so Adam and I will be spending some time in MD before the cross country drive. I love traveling and am very excited! We have some, but not all of our route planned. Any suggestions? I've been to Ohio and California, but no place in between.

I'm on nights this week and will try to update more, but no promises.

my lipstick be poppin

So, as stated before, I work a lot. Often in hot, humid, sweaty conditions where I get covered in several different kinds of body fluids throughout the day (Case in point: I currently have a filly in the hospital with a putrid stinking espohageal laceration that I have to feed through a tube every 4 hours. She does not appreciate my efforts and tries to cover me in goo/spit/pus every time I'm in the stall). So you can appreciate that it's difficult to look nice, and I have little time to apply make up.

Which is why I bought this:

It actually does what it says! I wore this lipstick (in constantly coral) through a 14 hour overnight shift and it was still there in the AM when I got home. It wasn't caked or cracked or flaky, just there, making me look a little better and less like the walking dead. Strongly recommend!

Going to California with an aching...in my heart

Match results are out! I got a medicine residency at UC Davis! Davis was my first choice-I never thought I'd get it. What an amazing opportunity!

There is the unfortunate drawback of being 2,076 miles from my parents and my home. But I have about a month and a half between my internship and my residency, and I hope to spend that at home. Time to investigate credit cards with frequent flier miles, I think.

Exciting to be closer to my cousins though! Yay!

How am I going to to get all our stuff out there?

Oh well, details later, celebration now!

Everybody's workin for the weekend

Okay so I love my job. It's foaling season so I've gotten a couple of these so far. This little squirt was born at the hospital to a mare that was a high risk pregnancy due to a cardiac arrhythmia (decompensated atrial fibrillation with signs of congestive heart failure for all my medically oriented readers). I was really worried about her and her momma, but everything worked out well, and they've been discharged from the hospital and are happy and wonderful.

Things obviously don't always work out so well-I also received a day old foal in severe sepsis that in spite of all kinds of fancy treatments did not make it. But at least we gave him a shot.

Things are ridiculously slow at work today so I am reading some journal articles and thinking about this weekend which I have off!!! Days when I have actually off, no on call, no worries come only once every 1o weeks, so this is very very exciting. I'm going riding with one of my internmates Saturday morning, but other than that I have no plans. Hopefully just a lot of lounging around in the sun and reading.

I'm currently reading a book called "the Weight of Silence" Good so far, but nothing spectacular. Books that I have read recently and would recommend include "Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenger (author of "the Time Traveler's Wife"). This newer book has the same beautiful writing style, and a very original story line that, like "the Time Traveler's Wife", veers off into the world of fantasy while staying entirely believable. Also, I really liked "Year of Wonders" a novel by Geraldine Brooks about the plague in 17th century rural England. It was a great story and very well written and researched, but I enjoyed her other novel "March" a little better. "March" is a story about the March family from the Louisa May Alcott classic "Little Women" told from the perspective of the March parents. It's much more honest that the classic, and brought a real depth to the story that I read several times growing up.

Hopefully reading will take my mind off residency match results. I find out if/where I'm going on Monday. Fingers crossed!

Snow!

Holy crap!

Okay, so it's not a lot. But I love snow!

Livin' just to find emotion

Christmas was...a first. It was Adam and my first Christmas together without the rest of the family. It probably would have been much better if 1-I wasn't working the night shift, and 2-I didn't have a wisdom tooth removed on the 23rd. I have never had a tooth pulled before. It was terrible! The dentist was very nice, but it's so terrifying holding your mouth open and having someone yank a tooth out of your freaking mandible while wide awake. I should have taken a vicodin before the procedure, as well as after. It was also probably a poor idea to have a tooth pulled at 10 AM and then go to work at 8PM that night to work a 12 hour shift. Luckily no emergencies.

Adam and I did start what I hope will be a new Christmas tradition: pancakes and bacon and mimosas (!) on Christmas morning. Then we both opened our presents and I went to sleep. Adam's big present came early-I flew our good friend Chris (his best man) down to Florida for a visit. Even though I was on nights, I stayed awake for most of a day to go to the beach.

Work has been fun-I have a bunch of pretty cool medicine cases right now (that all look like they will actually survive), and have been more or less rocking the surgery cases. One of our surgeons has been out of town, so I've been fielding a lot of his phone calls from owners and it's been strenuous. I spend a lot lot lot of time talking to owners about their horses. Seriously, on the more critical cases I update owners twice a day and referring vets once a day. At one point this week I had 6 in-hospital patients (not including outpatients and farm calls). At a minimum of ten minutes for each call , that's over two hours of conversation. I cannot remember when a human physician has ever called to check on me for anything. Anyone else?

In other news, here's an interesting tool I found on the Nature Conservancy website. It calculates your CO2 emissions and compares them to the emissions of the average American household. Check it out: http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/?src=l12

It then tells you about carbon offsets, and how you can help. I used to do a lot for the Nature Conservancy when I was a student at Frostburg and it was very rewarding. The Nature Conservancy has preserved land across America-in the Appalachians I did a lot of tree planting and removal of invasive species. It was super fun and I highly recommend it. To my republican friends: this is a nature organization without a huge political slant. I would also like to point out that the Sierra Club was started by John Muir and republican Teddy Roosevelt. Conservation doesn't have to be political.