November 22, 2009
“Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we’re going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.” – Frank, Old School
Six years ago, that quote was just funny. Today? Funny because it’s true.
We had a busy weekend here in the Cline household with some projects around the home – most notably, putting a storm door on our house. This was Matt’s birthday present from both our parents. (See? We’re Exciting!!) Although you should note when I say “we”, I technically mean “him.” If I’m being honest, my involvement in home improvement projects is usually fairly minimal. Trust me, this is in everyone’s best interest.
The install seemed to go very well, and we can now sit and watch the world go by our front yard. (Thanks Parents!!)
Welcome to our house! (We saw you coming.)
November 15, 2009
Is it just me or does turning the calendar page over to November suddenly start making everything go by in turbo speed? Maybe it’s the combination of more random things on the to do list (“must! put! up! Christmas! decor! NOW!) and more actual events on the calendar, but I swear there’s something about this time of year that just makes me feel busy. In a good way, but in a “where did the week go?” kind of way. Some highlights from this week:
Wednesday evening was Bunko nights with the ladies, which has quickly turned into Wine Drinking Night, since the dice hasn’t really made an appearance the last few weeks. No one seems to be complaining. We agreed we’d continue to call it Bunko night for the sake of our husband’s. (Hi, husband. I doubt you’re surprised.) Jamie, this week’s hostess, is a Southern woman if there ever is one and hosted an excellent get together. Not only was her house as sparkling as the cider in her fridge, but she had gotten together the ingredients to make caramel apples. It was the perfect fall evening activity, and of course culminated in one of my other favorite activities: eating. (Forgot to bring my good camera, so these come a la cell phone cam.)
Thursday was my wonderful hubby’s 28th birthday!. He had the day off, and I had a break in my schedule that afforded us the chance to go on a lunch date to our favorite restaurant, Village Tavern. (See, I told you that EM resident schedule had it’s perks!) VT has been our go-to for everything special in our relationship – everything from our first date to where we got engaged – so it was fitting that we were able to have a little birthday celebration there too. I always laugh to myself when the waiters ask “Is this your first time visiting us?” Once Matt and I counted out how many VT trips we had… and we estimated it to be in the 50s. I would estimate I have gotten the grilled chicken salad 47 of those times. Birthday boy had convinced me to give him his b-day present about 10 days earlier, but fortunately my mom had sent a package of cookies so there was still something to open on the official day. Both parents went in together to get him a storm door, which I believe is due to arrive any day. Yes, we’ve officially reached the age where Home Improvement gift requests top the list. Happy Birthday, honey!
Friday was kind of a random day, as most Friday’s tend to be for me. I woke up early and coached one of my private clients before starting my Wake day and coaching two more research participants. I had a small break, in which I scurried over to WFU and got my swine flu shot. Then I had four more Wake calls, and I did each one in a different place: one in Benson before deciding that was too loud (and weird; flashbacks galore), then retreated to the quiet but sunny patio to do the 2nd. Then I realized I had to be across town at Starbucks to meet my coaching client at the exact time my 4th call would be ending so I did the 3rd call in my car. That one ended early and I realized I was starving, so I dashed into Fresh Market and grabbed the most gorgeous Honeycrisp Apple and a this fruit and nut bar for lunch. I did my 4th call in the call, and then walked into Starbucks a minute before I was due to meet my client. Whew!
Fridays = Phone Call Days.
Friday’s Lunch. I felt compelled to snap it, no big surprise there.
Friday night we had a dinner for the emergency medicine department. Like any event where you know approximately 1.5 people, it was a little bit awkward but I must say, I liked having faces to go with the names of the many attendings and other residents Matt talks about. I always find it strange that I have no mental picture in my head of what Matt’s day is like for 8-10 hours every day. My mom always talks about what a good feeling it is to visit us in all the various apartments, dorm rooms, homes we’ve had so that when we talk on the phone, she can picture where we are. I feel a little bit that way about Matt’s life – I wish I could be a fly on the wall at work for just one day. At the very least, getting to meet some of the people he works with and hearing the department’s updates (via PowerPoint, ohhhh academia…) was nice. The dinner was hosted at Millennium in the Courtroom, which was a little bizarre since the last time I was there was our Chi Omega formal in the spring of 2002. Guess who my date was?
Saturday morning we got up early and headed over to tailgate with our friends Anne and Locke. We had mimosas and Midtown pancakes and marveled at the fact that it was nearly 80 out in November. I didn’t have plans to go to the game; Matt had tickets so at noon we parted separate ways. I came home and put the game on TV and rolled up my sleeves for an epic house cleaning. Our house had gotten to “Broken Windows” stage … a term we use to describe that point when things are so messy you stop trying to pick up. You know how it goes… if there’s one T-shirt on the floor, what’s one more? There was so much Buddy fur in the corners you could have knit a sweater with it and I can’t even speak about the state of our shower. So I got to work cleaning and catching up on laundry. Five hours later (five!!!), the house was scoured, scrubbed and shining. I was proud. And exhausted. And there was six loads of laundry I had just dumped on the bed. Sigh. Really? I debated leaving it there and taking a break, but decided the best thing to do was just get it over with. I dove in, put a book on tape on on my ipod and folded…and folded and folded.. for another hour. Then and only then did I declare myself DUNZO, and curled up with my reward: a DVR-ed episode of Glee (such guilty pleasure) and asparagus frittata. I know it sounds like kind of a lame Saturday night, but looking around my house, I just felt such a sense of satisfaction. (Jamie, I know at least you will understand.)
After: Om-Inducing Kitchen.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling well-rested, with the buzz of sniffing household cleaners the satisfaction of my productive night still looming over me. My November newsletter is bordering on overdue, but I’ve been procrastinating writing the articles for it. As I’ve mentioned before, I love writing first thing in the morning. I took advantage of knowing Matt would be sleeping late (having worked til 1 am) and cracked open Live Writer. Not only did I crank out the two articles, but I wrote five others ones that I had been sitting on – blogs for MegEats that I had taken the pictures for and just not updated. I always notice a jump in my blog view stats after my newsletter rolls out, but the work to get it out usually results in me not posting again until, well sometimes, the next newsletter. I’m psyched to be sitting on some drafts now. The rest of the day passed in a blur of other lingering to do lists items: getting my Christmas decorations organized, posting a few things on Ebay, editing and backing up the last few months of photos, walking the Spudster and my first run in over 2 months. (It was bad. Really, really bad. You know that whole “use it or lose it?” Yea.) All I have left hanging out on my to do list is editing a PowerPoint for tomorrow, and then there’s a bath tub and a book with my name on it. That seems like a pretty perfect way to end a busy, but productive weekend.
November 4, 2009
Matt has his first week-long vacation this week and it’s turning out to be a great week for both of us. On Monday I came home to find an award winning yard, a totally organized garage, a really happy (crate-free) dog, a clean house and a beaming husband. Um, wow? I think I like the way this vacation is going. We settled in to cooking dinner together, having a glass of wine (my first in six weeks!) and enjoying the leisurely type of evening that I imagine other couples have who both work 9-5 jobs might experience on a regular basis. We actually do have a sit-down dinner probably three or four times a week, but often I’m cooking while Matt is finishing up charts or shortly after we eat, I’m getting ready for bed while he’s putting on scrubs to heads out the door. Our weeknight routine is irregular at best, that’s for sure.
Although I must say, I really don’t mind – and in fact, enjoy many aspects of – the ED schedule. For starters, Matt’s never on call, and he’s usually home within an hour of when his shift is done. That kind of predictability is rare in medicine, and as much as I appreciate that now, I can only imagine how much more important that will be to me later on. Secondly, it provides us with a unique flexibility that other jobs don’t, especially with the work from home flexibility I have. For instance, while there might be a Friday night that he’s busy putting in central lines while I watch What Not to Wear, chances are sometime during the week there was a random Tuesday afternoon we were both home at the same time. Our time together may not be traditional, but for a medical intern’s schedule, it’s been pretty good. Nonetheless, he’s worked four very long months with sporadic days off here and there, so having a week’s vacation has been a blessing indeed. I know Home Depot is appreciating a man with free time on hands and projects to burn, as well.
On a related note, I had an eye opening moment yesterday in regards to my own vacation schedule. When I started at Wake Forest, my heart did a little backflip during orientation when I heard we got 25 days of sick/personal/vacation. 25 days? A gal could take a month off traversin’ around Spain with that kind of schedule! And, to boot, you can roll over up to half of that… in theory, accumulating 37 days of vacation in one year. Sounds great right? As it turns out, it’s been really, really difficult to use those days. Using vacation days means first finding the cajones to ask my boss for time off, inconveniencing 3 other extremely hard working people and mostly notably, coming back to more work then you left. Nonetheless, there are few things that recharge me more than traipsing around a new place with a map and my camera or a week at the beach with clams, beer and family and so I have done my best to take a few week long vacations every year.
Yesterday I worked on my PTO sheet for 2009 and found that even with a week in Myrtle in April and a week in the Dominican Republic in May and few Fridays off for weddings and other such revelry, I still I had 23.5 days left. 23.5 days!! As it turns out, I could probably much just stay home all December. I’m not sure what to do about this, since as I mentioned, burning through those days like rubber isn’t exactly encouraged or easily facilitated. But they’re my days yall, and if I don’t use at least 10 of them, I’ll lose ‘em.
To add insult to injury, I’ve also keep good records of how much extra I have worked this year. Let’s just say, I love me some Excel sheets. Last October, we had some personnel changes here at work. I won’t go into them here, but essentially a 3 man job became a 2 man job.. It was a very stressful time- there were a lot of tears, a lot of wine drinking and 4 letter words thrown around in my car in between parking spaces and garages. During the course of this event, I began keeping track of my hours in order to document how these changes had affected my work/life balance. I don’t have a punch in, punch out job – I have the kind of job where you do your work, whatever that takes. Sometimes that means reading food logs late into the evening hours, but it also means being able to slip out for doctors appointments or lunch dates without worry, or working from home on Fridays. But my job description does say 37.5 hours a week and I was curious to see with these changes, how close to accurate this was. I found that an average week for me, during this time, was about 50 hours. About 8 months later we hired a 3rd person, which greatly reduced my workload, but I continued to keep track of my hours. Mostly because I’m a little bit OCD and once I make me a good Excel tracker, I have a hard time cutting myself off from using it. In my Excel sheet, I had created a column to keep track of how many hours over my “full time” I went and how quickly those turned into extra days. Over the course of a year, and one month, I have worked an extra 33 days.
Now granted, when I plug in “6 am – 2pm” on my excel sheet, I know I’m not working a full 8 hours. I check twitter, I write wino emails, I go microwave my lunch and end up talking to a co-worker for 20 minutes about Twilight. These things happen. But let’s say – worst case scenario – I worked half of that. That means I worked extra 15 days this year. On top of my leftover 23.5 vacation days, I have nearly 7 weeks of “extra time” this year… just sitting on the back burner.
I’m not sure what to do about this… maybe spend a little more time on twitter at work? (Maybe write blog posts at work? Check.) Unfortunately, if I put my feet up and eat bon bons the person that comes back to haunt the most is me, and then my participants. There’s no “man” to take it out on… the bane and blessing of automonous work is that you get both the responsibility of your schedule, and the responsibility of your schedule. And I guess that’s the truth of many jobs where you don’t clock in and clock out. This is probably one of those realities of being a grown up that you’d rather just not delve that deep into, like compounding interests on mortgage loans or how laundry is never really done because even when the hamper is empty you’re wearing dirty clothes. File this under: Being a Grown Up Sometimes Sucks?
What I’m learning quickly here is that if I don’t respect and nuture my time, no one else is going to. Life is a zero sum game – where you think you’re saving time one place, you’re probably burning it somewhere else. So on that note, I’m punching out at Thursday at noon and I’m not looking back. Matt and I are escaping to the mountains for a weekend – our first and only trip to the montanas this year. I’m not bringing a single food log, weight loss chart or memory or a participant who had 3 apple pies for breakfast with me.
And that is what paid time off is all about.
May 17, 2009
I remember a conversation I had with an acquaintance at Wake as we both approached graduation. We had both just turned 22 and were talking about what we thought post-college life would be like. I recall her saying “I always imagined by the time I graduated college, I would be married and shopping for mini-vans.” (Please keep in mind that I did attend college in the South, where the phrase “MRS degree” is sometimes used without the slightest hint of sarcasm.)
I never really have had expectations about at what age I would get married or have babies or achieve certain things, and it didn’t even cross my mind that there was some unspoken agreement among the female species that there were certain “times” to have accomplished such things. I guess that’s why the transition from my young 20s to my late 20s has been kind of anticlimactic. I emotionally steeled myself at 25, expecting to have some kind of “quarter life crisis” as I had heard so often about, but I blew out my candles in 2007 with nary a hint of sadness as I strolled on in to the latter half of this decade. I expected again at 27, to have some kind of “OMG, ALMOST THIRTY” moment… as if that is some kind of cut-off for something? But no, nothing. My birthday came and went on Saturday, and while I was blessed enough to be surrounded by family visiting for Matt’s graduation, and some of the best LOLcards with warm’n'fuzzy and kind messages, and an amazing red velvet cake… I slipped into 27 quietly, almost as if I was already meant to be here.
I have enjoyed my 20s. I remember 20 for a life in Spain. I remember 21 for my first knock you on your ass relationship. 22 for my colitis diagnosis and graduation from college. 23 for making a home in Baltimore on my own. 24 for rekindling a relationship that turned into a marriage. 25 for that marriage. 26 for launching a business. I am ready for you 27. Bring me something good.
Wish made.
March 1, 2009
In the midst of gobbling up greasy Burke St pizza after leaving Finnegan’s on Friday night with the Forseys, we decided to revisit two of our other favorite greasies: artichoke dip and hot wing dip. See, here’s my beef with appetizers: either you eat your share of them and then you’re too full for dinner (which you end up eating because you’ve paid for it or made it) or you’re “saving room” so you just have a few nibbles. We decided to eliminate both problems and make the dips our main dishes, so we could indulge without guilt. So last night for dinner, that’s just what we did. Dips for Dinner. It should be an annual thing. But the pregaming should involve salads and sprints, because holy cow, post noshing food coma.
Check out that grease
After our indulgence into all things mayo-based, we laid around talking about hard wood floors, fridges and crown molding. Both of us are considering moving in the next couple months (anyone want a 3 bedroom in a lovely neighborhood with a crazy landlady?), and so the conversation was a spin off from our recent forays into the world of Open Houses and Resale Value. After much hypothetical talk, we piled into the car and drove through freezing rain to Lowe’s, which is open surprisingly late on a Saturday night. Jamie and I purred over stainless steel refrigerators and flat top stoves (OMG!! you don’t have to use foil and scoop crumbs out!! EEEE!!!) while the boys discussed how to install under cabinet lighting and window treatments. Remember being 12 years old and how you couldn’t wait to be a grown up? Yea, why was that? (Maybe so you could decide to eat 1/4th pan of artichoke dip without someone telling you you’d spoil your dinner?)
Admiring us some Corian
I did notice half a dozen other couples pondering Corian samples and Dyson purchases. Methink Lowes could be on to something if they had a workshop on Saturday night for couples with wine & beer and some kind of DIY project. Esp in this economy where I’m sure more and more people are more willing to take on DIY adventures and less likely to be picking up bar tabs on a Saturday night. A pinot gris plus a demonstration on Electrolux? Um, yes please. Now if THAT’S not excitement….
Or, maybe the pinot samples are not in their best interest…
February 23, 2009
After getting back from my in-law’s house, I threw myself into a flurry of housekeeping – I cleaned both bathrooms (tubs), cleaned up the kitchen (including the dreaded microwave wipe down, ugh), did dishes, mopped the kitchens and bathrooms, finished folding and put up laundry, washed and changed the sheets, dusted, vacuumed, and made pesto and banana bread (needed to use up parsley and overriped banans, respectively.) By the time I finished it was 7:45 and the Duke/Wake game was on so I watched that while reading food logs and then went to bed. A bit exhausting, but there’s just such a good feeling like looking around your house and seeing everything in it’s place.
Too bad it never seems to last more than 24 hours. As I was talking to my mom last night and reporting on my day, she paused before saying “Didn’t you do the exact same thing last Sunday?” Sigh.
