Bleeding For Work Morning Routine

I didn't intend to get up with my first alarm at 4:50 this morning. John can witness, I almost never make it out of bed with that one, it's usually between 5-5:20.

However this morning I woke with that dreaded feeling of something dripping down the back of my throat and by the time I made it to some kleenex the adrenaline had woken me enough to realize both sides of my nose were bleeding.

Now if you've ever tried to apply pressure to a bilateral nose bleed, you know it's hard to breathe.

And that's how I started my day.

It stopped in a pretty reasonable amount of time and I went about my morning, though I have been coughing up blood with each clearing of the throat.

So I've painted my nails, something I haven't done in almost a month. I'm using this 60 second Rimmel London in color 415 Instyle Coral. It goes pretty well with my sexy green scrubs. I've been pretty into quick dry formulations this Spring, they end up working better for me because I'm impatient but I don't end up smudging them right away because I can wait 60 seconds.

I also did my morning 10 minutes of yoga. I still use this app, All-in Yoga, and I've just been doing sun salutations lately. It's more than nothing but doesn't feel overwhelming and stretches me out nicely. It's one of very very few apps I actually paid for, but worth it.

[App Link]

After my morning stretches I usually spend at least a couple minutes of Spiritual time and read the verse of the day from the YouVersion Bible App. I really like today's:

The next step is a some Naked Juice with water, then a shower and then coffee and breakfast. Today a smoothie: 

Blender: Ninja. In the mix: Kale, strawberries, soy milk, protein powder, agave, 1.5-2 frozen bananas

I usually eat it with a spoon.

And it's just starting to get light outside, as you can see in the above picture that I just snapped. I have about 15 minutes until I have to leave for work, so I'm going to enjoy the rest of this smoothie, maybe throw on some mascara and do a spot of study reading, and be at work right on time by 7. 

See you soon. Working or not, I hope you have a great Saturday!

What do you look forward to most in your morning routine?

WIAW: The Final Week of NICU

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

Welcome back WIAW-ers. I'm Kari, I'm a pediatric resident in New Mexico, and I really appreciate you clicking on over.

4 more work days of NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). I like to think of it in terms of wake-ups. 4 more wake-ups for the NICU. For this academic year anyway. I'll be back in December. 

I don't want to give the impression that I don't love my job, being a pediatrician is totally my dream, but being a resident is sometimes hard to enjoy and though the NICU has been an unexpectedly positive experience overall, it's still not my life's work. 

Switch day is next Tuesday, and I go to the Emergency Room. The major advantage of that rotation is that the shifts are spread throughout the month so since I'm not taking vacation, I still have a couple stretches where I might have 2 days off in a row. 

I've taken to referring to Wednesday mornings as "Housewife Wednesday" while on this rotation because I get to send John off to work and then hang out with Luna and I don't have to be in clinic until 1. 

She's giving me these eyes because we're not outside.

I typically get some house or cooking things done, grocery shopping, laundry, though not always - sometimes I just have piles of admin stuff and work to catch up on. This morning I have a meeting for a community grant I'm writing, but after that I need to go get a gift for a friend's bachelorette party, so it will be a mix of both. 

Wednesdays this month are also often one out of maybe two days when I manage to fit in a blog post. Better than nothing?

So thanks for reading the long intro. Here's WIAW:

Breakfast: Quinoa Bran (idk what to call this, post about it coming later) with Strawberries and Banana. Naked Juice/water and coffee. Costco was closed for Easter this week so I liberated these from my hospital cafeteria to tide me over.

Lunch: Instant Minestrone. I thought it was a little ambitious of this instant soup to dry to do minestrone, complete with beans and pasta, and I had to try it. It was all right, but I think I'll stick with the asian flavors and noodle soups - they seem to lend a little better to the instant variety. Unpictured apple.

Snack: Trail mix.

Dinner: Zucchini Quinoa Lasagna. This is from More Peas, Thank You and it's a favorite. It's easy, healthy, and very easy to adapt for food allergies. This picture looks like it's glowing and all I can say is I'm grateful the days are longer and the blinding sun makes it into my house.

Dessert: Soy Creamy Ice Cream Sandwich. Chocolate.

So that's how it's going this week. I hope you're all having a good one. See you soon.

Golden Weekend

There's a thing in residency - the elusive Golden Weekend.

For many of our rotations we work 6 days a week, sometimes longer stretches, but it's definitely not common to have both weekend days off.

Thus, it's called a Golden Weekend. Depending on your program, working both weekend days might be a Black Weekend, and a regular 1 day on, 1 day off might be Gray or Brown, but we pretty much just use the Golden terminology.

Anyway, for the first time in several weeks at least - maybe 3 months? (not including vacation) I actually had a golden weekend built into my schedule.

When I'm working a schedule that gives me regular weekends, I think I don't appreciate them as much as when they are few and far between, but this weekend I really tried to make the most of it.

There were board games, breakfast out, hiking, biking, Church, long dog walks, some TV, a ton of cooking and Game of Thrones on Sunday with an ever-expanding group of friends, which makes it so much more fun.

I almost feel as though I've had a vacation.

So, sad though it was to return to work, I think I spent the time well and that made it feel easier to go back.

Breakfast at the Grove: Oatmeal with Strawberries

John got the pancakes. Apparently they were awesome.

PBJ flatbread on our hike.

And Luna feeling like we are so lame, why are we not still walking?

It's just about time to start another day, happy (belated) Easter and I hope that you had a good weekend too.

WIAW: The Cafeteria and Helicopter Crash

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!

Nothing has changed since last week really. Except the flavor of my giant bottle of Costco Naked Juice.

I didn't intend for juice selfies to become a thing on the blog, but sometimes things happen that I don't intend. Like crazy eyes. So now we're working our way through some Blue Machine.

Costco sells the Mango, Berry Blast (the red one), Blue Machine, and Green Machine. I like all of them and since we can go through this jug in about a week, we've just been rotating the flavors. Sometimes we also get carrot juice.

As usual I mixed about 2 oz. with a mason jar full of water. Hydration yay!

If you're wondering (you're not) at that rate how I can finish one of these jugs in a week, don't forget I have a husband. He's tall and needs lots of nutrition. And likes Naked Juice. If I were on my own I have no idea how long it would take to drink this. At a rate of 2 oz. a day - like a month.

So after some hydration, it's always coffee. I used to go straight for coffee, the problem of course being that I was totally dehydrated and stayed that way. Not that I really noticed, but I figured that probably wasn't good for me. Sometimes that morning jar is the only water I get until afternoon, but it's more than none.

Let's move on. 

Breakfast: Peanut Butter Banana English Muffin. This breakfast is so simple, but I just love it. I can't fit all the banana on top of my english muffin, so I always just eat the rest. Shout out to Sarah who used to eat this all the time (maybe still does - I absolutely love her blog but it's less food-focused now) and I never got tired of seeing it.

Lunch: Cafeteria Salad and Waffle Fries. All right, have you seen the John Mulaney New in Town stand up show? It's on Netflix and I make everyone watch it because it's awesome. He does this bit about restaurants and mentions these two food and the disparity between them. I say, if you eat one it balances out the other. So get you some salad and fries and watch some John Mulaney.

The real issue with the above lunch is that these are my options in the cafeteria. There are no vegan entrees, about 50% of the time there's a vegetarian entree. I try to bring my food but when I forget or don't have time, this is what I'm left with. The salad bar only has beans maybe 30% of the time, no grains, but always tuna salad, which is not really my thing. Plus some trail mixes and some prepared salads that once made me throw up for a whole night - so I don't eat those anymore.

Snack: Larabar, apple. 

Dinner: Trader Joe's Eggplant Wrap. Not totally my favorite just because I've never really gotten into the texture of Eggplant, but all the flavors of this are really good. The equivalent without the Eggplant is the Spicy Lentil. John picked up a couple things for me at Trader Joe's recently when the power was shut down at the hospital and all the non-essential areas (including food) were closed.

Why was the power shut off? This:

A helicopter crashed on the hospital roof last week. Fortunately no one was seriously injured, but it took several days to evaluate the damage and get it moved. We're all very grateful that the outcome wasn't more serious.

And so with that I have to leave you and go about my morning. There's lots to do before clinic starts. Like go to Target. And walk my dog. And a load of laundry. And also productive things like grant writing. Wild.

Have a good wednesday!

Do you have a cafeteria that serves food you like?

WIAW: Ugly Oats and Tiny Tasks

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

Good Morning and Happy What I Ate Wednesday!

On this particular rotation (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit - NICU) I really look forward to Wednesdays. Because of the schedule (7 AM-7 PM with one weekend day off) it's hard to get all our work done in the morning prior to our continuity clinic in the afternoon, so residents don't come in on their clinic day each week and that means I have this morning free of scheduled responsibilities (with plenty still to do of course). 

So I have a few hours to get things done. 

I started my day with trying to make a follow up appointment for a patient that I couldn't get yesterday and failed again - I didn't have the right ID numbers for the patient so I had to pass that off to the team that's working today, which I hate. Sorry :(. So now I'm feeling disgruntled - is that the right word? Frustrated maybe? Annoyed? Unsettled? I do hate being unsuccessful in little tasks, especially when it means more work for someone else.

Morning Listening - a little travel back in time:

Walk the Moon: Shiver Shiver. I never get bored of this album.

Morning Hydration: Naked Juice with Water. A few weeks ago John and I started buying juices from Costco and we've been working our way through carrot juice and all the Naked Juice flavors. We currently have the mango, which I think is the thickest one. I put about 2 oz. in a mason jar and then fill it the rest of the way up with water. Any more juice than that and it's too sweet.

Breakfast: Peanut Butter Banana Oats, Coffee. These are the ugliest oats I could possibly make. Also because I stirred and then took a picture, but let's be honest, I don't do much food styling. 

Lunch: Leftover Roasted Butternut Squash Pasta. I get home pretty late on this rotation - coming up on 8 PM and I'm so lucky to have a husband who cooks because I would otherwise probably eat microwave soup every day. This was a dinner he made recently that kept great as a cold pasta salad for the next day.

Snack: Larabar, Energy Bite. Every once in a while I can't resist the call of the 18 bar costco Larabar box, which has Cashew Cookie, Peanut Butter Cookie and Blueberry Muffin flavors. It's not the cheapest way to snack, but so good. And we just finished a second batch of the energy bites I posted about last week. I don't know why these are so good, but they are.

Dinner: PF Chang's - Spicy Green Beans and Coconut Curry Vegetables. I was fortunate enough to have my Aunt and Uncle visit recently when they were visiting my cousin in Santa Fe. It was great to catch up for a bit and they were so kind to bring us a gift card to PF Chang's. I have never been to one before. Not sure why, we had them in California, but we had a nice date. I filled up pretty quickly and ended up keeping most of the vegetable tofu dish for leftovers. Sorry for the low lit pictures. 

Dessert: 90% Dark Chocolate. More than 1 square of this is overwhelming, but just a little bit is perfect.

I hope you're having a good Wednesday, see you soon!

What's your favorite small-volume rich dessert?

April Goals and Disorganization

Petroglyph National Park

I could not tell you where my head is lately. I accidentally took home a delivery pager last week, then after I had come back home I realized I had left my stethoscope in the unit too and had to go get it before clinic, so that was twice to the NICU on my morning off.

I totally forgot about one of clinic dictations - I swear I was going through the papers in order but one must have been stuck together because I checked and I was missing a note for one of my kids, which is bad form because it's very important to document in a timely manner in case they come back to clinic or the hospital. I hate that slacker unprofessional feeling even though it was an accident.

Yesterday I forgot to eat lunch, I kept thinking I'd get to it and then it was practically time for the day to end.

And we're a week into April and I still haven't written this post. So there we are.

In my March Goals post I wrote about how I've been trying to limit my lofty goals and keep things within reason.

Here's my April Goals brainstorming:

In March I focused on water and talking to my family. It went pretty well and I realized how much better I could feel when I'm better hydrated. I'd like to continue both those goals but for April I've picked two new ones.

April Goals

1. Fitness: 10 minutes of physical activity every day. When I write it down it feels like nothing, compared to how active I used to be, but this is a very busy rotation and I wanted a goal that was realistic. So far I've been doing yoga for 10 minutes every morning and it at least helps me wake up and stretch out a bit. 

2. Spiritual: I use the YouVersion Bible app. In order to simplify my quiet time I just have a goal to read the verse of the day and pray in the morning. It's been less of a habit lately than I'd like but improved over the past week. For example: here's today.

The other sort of unspoken goal is to make good use of the small amount of free time I have this month. Today we went to the Petroglyphs, which are historic drawings from the Pueblo tribes in this area as old as 1300. It was nice out but pretty windy.

There were some pretty desert flowers blooming.

Luna enjoyed it.

And she loves the car.

Afterward we stopped at Squeezed, our local juice bar and I got a Liquid Sunshine, which is orange, apple, kale, lemon and ginger. It was so good and I was again reminded that I really want to buy a juicer. 

What are your goals this month? And what juicers would you all recommend?

WIAW: Back to Work

How has it been a whole week already? My vacation in Ohio with Shannon ended far too quickly and now I'm back to work. 

Miss you already!

So happy What I Ate Wednesday.

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

As of yesterday I switched from my advocacy rotation (called PARC) to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which is always a rough transition both because of the level of illness of patients and because of the hours we work.

We work 7 AM to 7 PM with one weekend day off. We also have clinic mornings off, which for me is Wednesday, but I had an early start because I accidentally took home a delivery pager (recycled picture from my What's In My Work Bag post, but you get the idea). The delivery pagers let us know where to go (and if we need to run) when there's a baby being delivered that might need resuscitation, but we're not supposed to take them home. 

I walked in the door at home last night and realized I still had 2 pagers attached to my scrubs, but there's enough that I just had to have it back my sign out this morning at 7, so in the dark this morning I ran over to the hospital to return it and then resumed my productive morning before clinic. 

Breakfast: English Muffin with PB and Banana, Naked Juice, coffee.

We've started buying our juice from Costco. I've been mixing 2-4 oz. with water to fill up a jar - about 12 oz.

64 oz of Berry Blast juice. That's the size it should always come in.

Coffee, juice/water mixture

English muffin

Lunch: Gardunos Veggie fajitas turned into a bowl with all the fixings.

Snack: Power Protein Ball

I used this recipe: No Bake Energy Bites. I didn't use chocolate chips and added a scoop of protein powder. It made 19 balls which work out to about 100 calories and 4 grams of protein each. They're absolutely filled with super foods: chia seeds, oats, coconut, flax, peanut butter etc.

Dinner: Vietnamese. Little Saigon in Dayton. Technically this wasn't today - it was a meal I had with Shannon in Ohio, but I really wanted to share it, and I would eat it today if I could. 

Fresh spring rolls.

Tofu veggie Pho. If you're thinking this looks enormous, you're right, but I still ate most of it. I always add all the cilantro and sprouts - they're the best part.

I'm trying hard to think ahead and eat healthy while on this rotation with long hours, but it definitely takes some planning to have all the necessary parts available, which is why I made the power balls linked above, they're so easy to have for a snack and much less expensive than commercial bars.

What's your favorite grab and go snack?