a colorful surprise

April 4, 2010

kind of funny
that i write a post called “quality vs quantity” and it’s pretty much the length of a novel. i’m well aware that sometimes i write too much; josh tells me this, and recently even my parents told me that they liked my blog better “when you didn’t write every day.”

if i were a writer aiming for word count, i’d be kicking butt! but in the context of a blog where i’m competing with others for precious lunch-hour minutes and google reader space, i’m probably better off being a little more concise. sometimes i just have a lot to say, though! and i think i’m a much better writer than i am photographer, so filling up my entries with pictures doesn’t make much sense.

oh well. good thing i enjoy doing this! i won’t be quitting my day job any time soon, so it probably doesn’t matter, anyway. but something to think about, with quality > quantity in mind.

beauty in unexpected places
after sleeping in after my friday night shift, josh and i headed to hillsborough for lunch in the sun. hillsborough is a town located less than 10 miles from our apartment — actually about the same distance as downtown durham, where we head all the time.

it’s a little bit off the radar — although not in the blog world since hillsborough is the hometown and birthplace of kath!! it has a very different, insular small-town feel compared with durham or chapel hill. unlike these college towns, hillsborough isn’t overrun with northern transplants (like myself!). it’s a bit quaint and somewhat sleepy compared with say, raleigh or franklin street. but it definitely has plenty of charm and an ease that the more bustling areas lack.

we drove into town without concrete plans: we just wanted to eat lunch outside, and josh wanted a burger. we saw this sign at gulf rim along with one empty table outside, and the decision was made.

i love scallops, and josh loves . . . pork.
josh drank a beer and i would have loved to join him but with a night shift it wasn’t an option.


we started with a shrimp cocktail appetizer — buried underneath the spicy, absolutely fantastic sauce were several large chunks of avocado! yum. we were fans.


i did order the aforementioned scallops — in the form of a quesadilla with artichokes. it was delicious (and huge – i required much help from my dining partner who luckily is always up to the challenge).


however: this meal was definitely NOT the highlight of our experience. because . . . look what was just across the table . . .


!!!!!!!
striking up a conversation with the couple that brought her in, we learned that this beautiful rainbow-colored creature is a green-winged macaw. it was so cool to just sit there and watch the exotic creature, who was very peaceful and well-behaved as well as pretty.

true to stereotype, she was all about the crackers
just one thing was left to make my afternoon complete


loyo with strawberries and granola!
and guess what? they’re already expanding — locations in raleigh and greenville coming soon!

checking in on work goals . . .
last night’s shift was a bit more of a challenge. our attending said it was just one less than the record number of patients he’s seen in a peds shift! but, i feel like i did pretty well with my dual goals of being present and just taking things as they come.

there were moments when this was hard and i am not going to pretend i didn’t start to feel overwhelmed as the hours went by and the patient flow just DID. NOT. STOP. but i think i handled it much better than i have previously. i tried to keep my focus on just one kid at a time — and surprisingly this did seem to make my job easier and helped the time to fly by.

i will say that by 5 AM, even though i was desperately trying to cling to positivity and energy, my brain wasn’t having any of it. all i could think about was the end of my shift — even as i reminded myself that i was trying to avoid that way of thinking. while i was engaging in this mental battle, i kept nodding of at my computer terminal. heh.

i guess it’s just physiology — in the happiness project, the author begins her project by focusing on getting enough sleep, since she felt like this would make everything else easier. i completely get this . . . but what to do when that’s not an option (residency and motherhood both come to mind as situations where the old 8-hour adage is just NOT going to happen)? hmm.

all right, it’s off to work again! happy easter to those who celebrate and if not, i hope everyone had a lovely weekend . . .

———————————————————————–

4.3.10

workout: 6 miles on the tobacco trail, calibrating my footpod. i therefore don’t really have any speed data. 8:40-8:50ish maybe? in perfect breezy 70 degree temps.

reading: 5 prep questions while on my shift. less than ideal . . . but i tried, i really did! and that is what matters to me.

i am grateful for . . .: nice, smart, and generally awesome work colleagues.

2 Comments

  • Reply Chelsea March 10, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    Woah… crazy bird. I wish some kind of reasonably healthy ice cream variation like that would come to Madison, but it&#39s probably against Wisconsin state law.

  • Reply Kristina March 10, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    I love the randomness that can happen when you don&#39t have those "concrete plans". Sounds like a great weekend!

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.