Christmas is fast approaching! Bells are ringing, children singing, lights twinkling, and the smell of christmas cookies and pine trees fill the air. I'm very very excited about traveling home to be with the family and seeing my wonderful friends! I may not have a White Christmas this year, but I still love this song! Enjoy....
Cashier looking at my purchases of gift wrap, tape, and sushi: "So does this mean you are all done after this purchase?"
Me: "bahahahaha! no."
All the gifts I have bought online, except for one package, are "undeliverable". Which means that a) I have to call USPS and yell b) my stuff is definitely not getting home by Christmas Eve c) the shopping that I did have left has now grown considerably d) I'm going to have to fight to return the stuff that didn't make it home e) these are not things you can buy at your every day mall!
UGH! Have I mentioned that I strongly dislike shopping? I love Christmas. I love wrapping presents and listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies on TV (ok certain movies, not of the lifetime variety...more of the Love Actually and The Holiday and Miracle on 24th Street variety). However I absolutely hate the holiday madness and mall crowds.
Also there is a considerable lack of snow here in Colorado. It's the week of Christmas and no snow on the ground? How is this possible? Even crazier, it is so warm outside that yesterday I went with Katie to go kick a soccer ball around at a park, in shorts and a t-shirt, and I was completely comfortable. Yep, it's 60 degrees today here in Colorado. Which I have to say was awesome for soccer! I haven't touched a soccer ball in forever so it was kind of sad, but Katie and I had a blast goofing off and trying to remember all the silly soccer games you play as a kid.
Despite the present delivery conundrum and the lack of wintery weather, I am still celebrating and revving up for the holiday! This weekend I had people over for the first time! Carolyn and Janna came over Saturday during the day to bake cookies. We made 101 sugar cookies.... which turns out is a TON of cookies (entirely too much for 5 people to consume on a Saturday night). On top of that, Rae (office manager at work) requested more Monster Cookies this week. So I have a ton of those as well. Despite having people over on Saturday night, where massive amounts of cookies were consumed considering there were only 5 of us, I still have cookies all over my kitchen!! Hopefully I can get rid of most of them at work tomorrow!
Sugar Cookies before:
Sugar Cookies After:
Adorable GingerPeople!
What is Christmas without Holiday Dino's?!
So to sum up: the holiday season is in full blast here. This weekend consisted of christmas cookies, friends, soccer (ok maybe not so holiday-ish), lots of curling up on the couch watching christmas movies: Love Actually, Prancer, Miracle on 24th Street, and then finally gift shopping this afternoon! Tis the season... falalalala.
I'm really excited to be going home to the Pines on Friday! Xmas with the family, playing with the new puppy, catching up with friends, and then SBG brunch!! Maybe I will even have some cookies to bring home to them!
Also I just saw this today and thought it was adorable, not as good as the bears, but still..... Merry Christmas!
This weekend my parents were here! We went skiing at Breckenridge. I have been to Breck three times so far this year, and every time I have gone it has been packed!! This weekend wasn't bad because we had so much snow the roads were closed!
I had the fortunate opportunity to take friday off of work (which yes, my friends, that meant a glorious four day weekend)! My parents got here Thursday night, and we left at the crack of dawn on Friday (in true Menendi fashion). It started snowing halfway to the mountain, and didn't stop until Monday morning. We had 24'' of snow, and there was no-one on the mountain until late Saturday. Needless to say it was glorious! Here are the winter wonderland pictures!
View from our room
The lift line for first tracks in the fresh 14'' of powder!
Mom and Dad ready to go
First tracks!
"it's up to your knees out there"
you could easily get lost in powder this deep (the vertically challenged people such as myself)
There is literally no-one here! (besides my parents you see in the distance)
Rockin the helmet. My face looks tiny.
Then today my dear friend Theresa, who is currently studying glassblowing in Sweden (read her blog here ) sent me my very first Christmas ornament! Sadly I do not have a tree to hang it on, so I bent 3 nails trying to get it above the fireplace, until I gave in and just put it on the wall. It is beautiful and I love it!
Pretty glass ornament made by T!
My wonderful xmas card from T! I have no idea what "God Jul" means in Swedish, but I like to think it means "good yule" what is yule anyway? There are yule-logs and yule-tide.... maybe it is swedish? Thank heavens for internet!
I must now leave you for the night, as there are many holiday cards to write!
"you know yawning is contagious" - hungover patient
"I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm so tired today, I even went to bed early last night!" - me
"You need to party more. It will rejuvenate you" - hungover patient
"My back hurts more today! And I don't think I did anything different."
1 minute later.... "Oh, wait yes I did! I was sitting on a desk attached to a wall... and it broke!"
"if my patient shows up 20 minutes late again, i'm going to scream!" - me to a student
"you know what you need? Tequila!" - student
"Have you been doing your exercises every day?" - me
"oh yes, I'm all about consistency. That's why I have to have my appointment scheduled at the exact same time" - patient (who showed up 20 minutes late... AGAIN)
"how about working on consistency with coming to therapy? You have cancelled or missed half of your scheduled appointments. If you come more often, you will progress more quickly" - me
"Oh, have I really missed that many? wow. Well I'll see what I can do" - chronically late and absent patient
Ten minutes later:
"Well you won't be seeing him again for two weeks." - A (front desk)
"WHAT?! Why not?!!"- me
"we didn't have any openings in for the same time slot. We had some half an hour later though, but he wouldn't come unless it was the same time" - A
Seriously?!?!
"I'm tired today. We had our Christmas Party this weekend" - Patient
"Oh, did you have fun?" - me
"Yeah, I danced a lot!" - Patient
"How did your knee feel with that?" - me
"Great! The right combination and I'm fine!" - Pt
"What combination is that?"
"Crown and ice!" - Pt
20 minutes later....
"Do you need some water?" - me
"No, but I'll take a beer!" - Pt
Somehow all my patients think we run a bar... maybe we should open one next door?
OK, so the quote doesn't really have much to do with anything in this post. Other than the fact I've been dancing around today for exercise, mostly because I'm going crazy with studying... but until we get to that...
Determination, my friends, determination!
About what you may ask? Well let me tell you, about this blog! As you can tell I am a very busy bee and have hardly any time to write! (not entirely true, just sometimes I would rather drink wine and read a good book snuggled under the blankets while watching the snow fall!) But my friends, I've decided since we are all such busy bees, I will try to stick with this a little bit longer and maybe just have shorter, more frequent blog events!
Today was very very busy (ha). I returned my redbox movie: Letters to Juliet - definitely a cheesy romantic movie, yet wonderful if you like that kind of thing. I may or may not have leaked a few tears, although the ending was absurd! I took my skis to the shop to get tuned. I realized this weekend while I was skiing with my sister that my skis can't handle the late afternoon/early season ice patches, they slide right over and I almost bite the dust! Plus my parents will be here in two weeks and we are going for a 3 day ski vacation, so my skiis need to be in shape! Then I got some groceries, some wine, and spent the rest of the day studying and planning my week.
Studying you ask? Aren't you a doctor already? Well yes I am (still surreal) but I am taking yet another certification test on Saturday. The CSCS - Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist exam. I'm nervous!! I feel like I've hardly studied at all. Hopefully my PT background will help me!
Next Monday, I am in charge of the clinic as my bosses are off to a Titleist certification course (yep that's a PT course specializing in golf training and rehab). I'm really nervous, but also excited. I'm just concerned one of the techs (who is basically my age) wont listen. I'm definitely still transitioning from student to PT, and need to take more initiative/control with the techs. I'm also praying that nobody gets sick, or has exacerbations, or sudden adverse events during the day I am alone! Not that I haven't handled two of those already since working here, but it's awful calling 911 - and worse when you don't have your wonderful mentors telling you how well you handled it and helping calm you down! No, the incidents were not my fault. They both have conditions where these adverse events could happen anywhere, and they just happened to be in my treatment session. Although sadly I think it did scare one of my less mentally sound patients away.
Tonight I had dinner again with Carolyn and Paul. They are so wonderful! They had me over for Thanksgiving last week and I had a blast with Carolyn's family, who I haven't seen in at least ten years. Hoorah for old friends!
Thank you so much my dear readers for sticking with me! You are all very wonderful! I have had readers recently from the UK and New Zealand even! Welcome new friends :)
