Christmas Decorations

My first live tree! I got it at the grocery store down the street. Much thanks to my mom who has been giving me ornaments for years so that I would have something to put on it!

And below that is a very pretty live wreath that I got from Whole Foods.

This was taken at the Paris Bistro in Salt Lake City on Holland's birthday, December 15. His brother Rob and Rob's wife Rachel came down from Park City to eat with us. It was fun!


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Location:Princeton Ave,Salt Lake City,United States

Christmas Tree!

That's Holland underneath it. It was only after we finally got it all situated that we remembered we were supposed to cut the end off so it can suck up water!

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Utah Thanksgiving

So, for those of you who haven't heard, Holland and I will be working both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. That's right, despite being senior residents, we got completely screwed on the schedule front. This has contributed significantly to my extreme burnout this year. But that's all I'm going to say about that because otherwise I get way too negative and this post is about something happy, which is that I managed to have a wonderful Thanksgiving in spite of being held against my will a bazillion miles from home. Behold:

That's brussel sprouts with parmesan cheese, heavenly hash brown casserole, sweet potato casserole, and dinner rolls made from scratch. AND a pecan pie.

Here's a closer look at Holland's beautiful pecan pie:

My friend Alicia made a turkey all by herself! It was gorgeous (and tasty)!


And here's Holland's also-beautiful homemade cranberry sauce:

We watched football and played cards and it was very nice.

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Roses

Roses in Holland's granddad's backyard, taken with my new iPhone 4S









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Cocoa

This is Holland's parents sweet 13 year old lab, Cocoa.



The photo was taken on my brand new iPhone 4S, which I got today because my old phone, which has been getting progressively more dysfunctional, finally refused to turn on at all today.


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End of Summer (officially)

I walked into my backyard to pick the last of the tomatoes after our first frost and look what I found:






Isn't the red pretty?

Holland fried up all our green tomatoes. He made fried chicken, biscuits, and peach cobbler to go along. We invites friends over to partake.






We're still looking for pointers on making fried chicken, if anyone wants to share!

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Princess

It's been a while, so here's your Holland an Jipsy picture of the week:






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YES!

Five posts this entire month! For those who don't know, I've spent most of September working in the ICU, working 28-hour shifts every third day. So that has pretty much consumed my life.

I've been feeling really stressed for a while now because I don't know what to do with my life. In terms of personal growth, I feel like I've not only stalled but actually regressed during residency. I know what I'm going to do in the short term - get married, move to Portland for Holland's fellowship, probably work as a hospitalist next year. But as far as what kind of job I want to do in the long term I have no idea. Right now I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a hospitalist (a doctor who only takes care of people in the hospital, on the general medicine wards) forever. Do I want to do a fellowship? A second residency? Work as a hospitalist long enough to pay down my student loans, then open up a bakery? I have no. clue.

Since I'm clearly not getting anywhere with the being-stressed-out thing, I've decided that for now I'm not even going to worry about what I want to do in the long term. I feel like maybe if I improve my life a little it will be easier for me to figure it out. So here are the first steps I've decided on:

1. Stop when I find myself saying or thinking negative things (most of these right now are related to my job). Try to replace them with more reasonable, neutral thoughts.

2. Get more energy by getting more sleep and eating better (i.e. no candy for breakfast).

So there's that. Headed off to my 11PM bedtime - hey, this is early for me!

Moooooooose!

We saw this hiking up at Brighton today:

I grew this! In my backyard!

(It's a pumpkin)

So far it's the only one my pumpkin plant has grown. Not bad for my first year though I guess.

Friday day off

Holland made homemade biscuits from a recipe from my Big Mama's Old Black Pot cookbook:



Mirabelle plums all ready to make preserves:


Date night!


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Holland made dill pickles

From baby cucumbers from the farmers market!



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Homemade gnocchi!

Holland hard at work on the food mill:






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Homegrown tomatoes!

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Fresh churned ice cream!

Saturday farmers market






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Thanks Millie!

Millie sent me this "happy" in the mail- how awesome is that?!?



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Bear Lake raspberries are here!

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Bird's nest!

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Saturday farmers' market

The box of apricots is "seconds"- ugly, unloved fruit for making jam (which Holland LOVES to do). The creature hanging out of the bag is onions.

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Remember these?

The sickly dahlias?


Well, I took Nana's advice and stopped watering them at night.

Check them out now!



Now for her next challenge. What is wrong with my squash leaves?



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Salt Lake farmer's market (only a few days late)

(look closely, it's a bagpiper)



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Date night!

We went to a free concert downtown, then had delicious Belgian frites (french fries) afterwards. Salt Lake City has really good bands come and play every Thursday during the summer and admission is free. It's pretty crowded but it was still a really good time!





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Hidden!

Holland took this picture of Jipsy's camo. When I first saw it, I was like, "why did you take a picture of the chives?" I didn't even notice her!


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Omg do you SEE this?

Those dark spots all over the tub are kitty paw prints. Jipsy does this multiple times per day and then tracks them also all over the white tile floor. There is a little area where water that drips from the faucet tends to collect, so every time I forget to close the bathroom door Jipsy does this and I clean it up. MULTIPLE times per day. Why again do I continue to feed this animal?!?!?

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Sock Monkey bed

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Wally eating turkey

My mom's fat cat, Wally



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Surprise!

I took this picture Wednesday night just to document the delicious mushroom risotto Holland made me and the delicious-smelling stargazer lilies he had gotten for me. As one of my friends said, this is clearly a testament to what a sweet boyfriend Holland is that I didn't think there was anything unusual about him getting me flowers and making me dinner.



Of course, maybe I should have been suspicious when he made me margaritas (my favorite drink) to go with the mushroom risotto (my favorite home dinner). Since those aren't usually paired together.

I had been working really late and was ready to go to bed. I was just telling him this when he asked if he could ask me a question...



And we're engaged! The ring is his great-grandmother's and is 95 years old! The cut is beautiful and it is so glittery. It's probably the most special thing I've ever been given. And I get to marry the sweetest boy in the world!

Guess I have to start getting manicures now!

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iPad time!

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