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7th August 2008

cooking adventures

(Notice the date… written last week and accidentally posted now.)

Chicken spagetti made with spinach and yogurt is an interesting combination. Not bad, really, but it took a couple of bites.

This started out as an attempt to make chicken tikka masala. But I’m missing ingredients for this new recipe I found (there is an appalling lack of ginger in my house), and I couldn’t let the chicken go to waste and I’m rather infatuated with cooking with yogurt recently (I think I perfected my salmon recipe), so… the above was the result.

I’m not sure that I’ll be repeating it soon.

So, my mother noted that I haven’t been updating my LJ and called in a panic on Sunday to make sure that I was alive. To alleviate those other worries about my safe-being, yes, I’m alive. I’m just bored and have little to talk about. Okay, I do have things to say: I’ve got a post brewing about the Vienna Teng concert that I went to on Tuesday which may have even been better than her first concert two years ago (her music makes me want to write in purple prose. I love it!). I’m still not a clinic person and I’m really glad that I didn’t go into orthopedic surgery (sample of the conversation today: “Is [he/she] on pills? [He/She] sounds like someone who would be on pills” – referring to antidepressant medications. And this gem to a young, but overweight patient coming in for referral “So, is this you? I mean, when we do the operation is this what I have to deal with?” UGH. Please note that this is not an attack or rant against orthopedics or surgeons in general. My favorite, most inspiring doctor in the entire world is an orthopedic doc. Because of my bone disease, I have to see them periodically as a patient, and the number of muscles and ligaments that they have to know thwarted me in med school and hasn’t gotten much better. That said, this particular orthopod was a jerk.)

My new blog s almost, almost ready for its unveiling. I’m trying to figure out the heading, and once that’s done, I need to transfer all of LJ entries over (which I keep putting off in the hopes that somebody will figure out how to import moods and current music fields. Tags would be nice too), and then it’ll be ready. I think. I can’t tell you how much effort this has been. I started working on it back in March, messed something up, deleted it, started again in May, deleted, repeated about 3 times in June and finally got the current version partially running in July… just in time for the upgrade of wordpress to 2.6. *sigh* I’ve devoted much of my spare time over the last two weeks to figuring it out. Most of my problems have been related to the fact that I know next to little about webdesign… the little I taught myself for my little website was all HTML (and sloppy HTML at that) and that has been long since forgotten. WordPress does make it easier in that most everything is run through plugins, but if something goes wrong (and it always does), then I had to dig through the code to figure out what was up. The only thing I haven’t figured out is how to expand out the default size of the comments once they’ve been posted and how to get the UserPhoto working so that it actually shows up inside the comments, rather than haphazardly across the page as it currently is wont to do. I’ve given up on that for the moment (unless of course some computer programming brainiac out there might know the answer!) and have accepted that my blog won’t look quite the way that I want it to. At least at this point.

But, Julia, why the switch, I hear some of your asking (I’m psychic, did I tell you?). There’s a variety of reasons (I like lists):

– One, I’ve got a lot of friends and family who read this journal and don’t have a LJ themselves, and I don’t think any of them enjoy replying as an “anonymous.”

– Two, I have been rather disgruntled by the change in management styles and the addition of advertisement across all of the pages, and while I completely and totally understand that this is a for-profit business and they can do whatever they want, that doesn’t mean that I have to support it with my money.

– Three, I’ve been paying for my own web domain for over 4 years now. I probably won’t ever finish my LOTR Inklings project, but the thought of giving it up breaks my heart. So this is a little bit of a compromise and allows me some relief of the guilt of money wasted.

– Four, WordPress has some nifty, nifty functions, like a picture gallery plugin that’s even prettier than Flickr and customizable sidebar widgets.

– Five, I don’t know if you all are aware, but there’s been some backlash and criticism to physician blogging, thanks to a couple of articles in the LA Times, the NY times, and JAMA. I’m such a lurker and rarely update my other medical blog, so I’m not showing up on anybody’s radar, but I like the idea of being able to more closely control who is seeing what I write. And while LJ has this great feature of being able to friendslock an entry, that doesn’t change problem #1. WP allows me to register readers.

– Six. I can’t recall what the sixth reason is. It probably doesn’t matter.

I’m not leaving LJ, no worries. All of my entries will be cross-posted to both, the entries here will just be much more censored and locked down. And I’ll still be active in reading my friends’ LJ, although comments are still expected to be sparse.

The problem with wordpress is that it is a blog. LJ is great because it’s a journal, my journal. I can write down everything, regardless if it has a purpose. But a blog conveys that posts have themes and reasons, and I’m not sure that I like that. I’ve tried writing a couple of pure medical blogs and failed miserably. We’ll see.

I might go camping tomorrow. Yay! That is, if I manage not to get called in for back-up call and I get out of clinic on time.

And I don’t want to go to clinic in the morning.

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2nd July 2008

well, strike that one off the list.

You know what’s more disheartening than find out the guy you crushed on throughout medical school is now married? Finding out, now, that he’s a democrat and a supporter of Barack Obama. DRAT. Single democrat Mormon guys are so exceedingly rare, that if I had realized, I really would have tried to pursue much more than I did. 🙂 (Okay, that might have been an impossibility, save me throwing myself on the hearth and refusing to leave until he dated me)

Actually, I am ecstatic for him and not upset about his nuptials. I had gotten over the crush a long time ago and she seems very nice and just right for him.

But, oh, the lost opportunity.

****

I fly out to Utah tomorrow for a week of vacation. My parents were supposed to come out here, so we could work on my house, but my sister had surgery and is less mobile than anticipated. So instead I’m going home, where I hear that it’s hotter than blazes. Meanwhile, the weather here has been gorgeous for the past 2 weeks–an occasional downpour and then 60-70s with blue skies.

I’m excited to go home. I’m hoping to work on some projects such as transferring my blog (more to come), scanning family pictures, making DVDs out of some beloved VHS tapes that are wearing thin, BBQs, etc.

In the meantime, my ward had planned on coming over and helping me with my place as well. As there was something like 23 volunteers, they’ve decided to go ahead with it, so I’m leaving instructions on what needs to be done. Hopefully, I’ll come back to a smashed up sidewalk, a ditch that runs to front yard, bleached walls and patched window sills. I’m overwhelmed at the thought of all of the help–I know I couldn’t have done it on my own.

In any case, I need to get to bed. Have a lovely 4th, all of you!

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12th April 2008

yesterday i died tomorrow’s bleeding and i’ve lost who i am

In the midst of the gigantic pity party and sobfest that I held yesterday (being post-call really sucks when you’re trying to control your emotions), I opened my front door to find a big box with a quilt inside, sewn and quilted by my mom, my aunts and my grandma.

I love you too. Thank you. *hugs*

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1st April 2008

Stand up and be counted!

Hi family members!

Welcome to my blog! I think some of you have been reading this for a while now (and not commenting), but if not, glad to have you around. I’ve kept an online journal for the past 4 years, so if you are interested, there’s plenty of old archives to waste your time reading.

I am curious, of who exactly is reading my journal. So, family, friends, countrymen singe men, wanna just click on that little link that says “free your tongue” and tell me who you are. Consider this your guestbook. 🙂

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7th January 2008

*waves*

Yes, yes, I realize that it’s been 3 weeks since I posted. The rumors about my death were sadly true and this is just a puppet Julia posting to get sympathy and cookies. And lots and lots of attention. 🙂 Did it work?

I have tons to write about, for posterity’s sake, about my fabulous vacation. Two weeks was almost enough to make me feel human and carefree and young again, and therefore was too short. I managed to see most of my family and friends (missed the medical school gang, though. *pout*) and spend as much time with my grandparents as possible, because I realized that they are getting older and I’m really far away. All in all, it was a really busy 14 days, and even with the constant hammering on the new roof and the just above freezing weather in Phoenix, well worth the time away from the cold of the Midwest.

However, a picture is worth a thousand words (although I’m not so great at taking pictures of people. Scenery that stays still, yes, people, no, so I’ll let these go for 500), so in leiu of words, may I present:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jcd1013/Family
http://picasaweb.google.com/jcd1013/PlethoraParty
http://picasaweb.google.com/jcd1013/ChristmasInUtah

(I just realized that I didn’t get pictures of my sister Laura or my new brother in law. Whoops. Sorry, Lars.)

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3rd December 2007

Protected:

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7th August 2007

in trouble

I called up my sister to wish her a happy birthday. I had left a message on her blog, that linked to my other medical blog (which I rarely update), which she brought up. Somehow, I mentioned that that blog wasn’t my real blog.

Oops.

Now, she’s begging for the address, and soon my whole family will be over here. Which I mind and don’t mind at the same time.Opening the blog up to the Plethora was the first hard step, so I’ve gotten used to having RL friends reading. But, I don’t know, it’s so hard exposing myself. I mean, I still have never directed Chris to my blog. He knows about it, and I know that claidheamhmor and melancthe had told him that he needed to start a blog and get into the LJ thing, but I’m not sure if he ever read mine.Of course, now he’s too busy to browse the internet, so I can talk all kinds of smack about him. And I’m afraid that it would stilt my carefree writings having family here and I’d slowly drift away from LJ. It’s nice to have a place where I write without thinking how it’s going to be interpreted.

So of course, this means it’s poll time.
poll time

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2nd July 2007

ah, family

My brother-in-law suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung) this week. He’s fine, just has a nice chest tube sticking out. The funny part? My sister didn’t tell me (okay, this is my sister, who didn’t tell me she was dating someone. To be fair, I was the first to hear about the engagment, but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised). Apparently, I won’t have to worry about needing to give too much medical advice to family members. 🙂

My family (sans Laura and Josh) will be coming out and visiting me in about a week. I’m so excited. Not only do I get to show off my place and my home (and boy do I have a ton to do before they get here!!), but I get a week of vacation. We’re going to go up north, around Minnesota and Michigan and maybe catch some of Canada in those few days and I’m so excited to get away from the city. In my heart of hearts, I belong in the rural, backwoods country, where there isn’t more than a dozen people around me. The influence of living in a town of 250 in the formative years. 🙂

And I am now officially a Resident, a PGY2. Snap. Just like that. Things aren’t really that different. I have an intern, who’s much like a medical student at this point, and there’s a fellow (a freshly graduated resident who I worked with on call a few times last year). As always, freak out was a little overwrought. But that’s nothing new. It still has the potential of being very scary in the future, when I won’t have a fellow backing me up, but it’ll be a little bit of time before I have to face that.

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25th May 2007

gloom and doom

I’m having one of those pathetic days, where I feel gloom and depressed and completely alone. It’s not like things have been difficult right now… Work wise, things are going well, easy schedule (well, I start jeopardy call in the morning, so things at least have the potential of becoming more hairy), and I’m enjoying working with my colleagues. Even the resident that I’ve despised is more tolerable now and we’ve actually had one or two pleasant conversations. (It’s all a facade, but whatever).

But then I come home, and while I enjoy living alone, right now, I feel lonely. One of the good friends that I’ve made here moved to Utah this week for her residency, and because of an alarm clock fluke, I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye. Two of my co-interns in Neurology are leaving, one because he got married to a girl who refused to move, the other because of health concerns, and they’re my buddies. I just found out about one of them this week and since he’s ignoring my phone calls/emails, well… You all know how much I despise change, and to be confronted with all of this at the same time, I guess it’s no surprise that all I’ve wanted to do is crawl into bed and stay there.

We won’t even mention the loathing/disgust/longing mix that’s associated with the few potential boys in my life. I’m too bitter right now.

I have 3 posts about my sister’s wedding started, that I’ve never finished. Maybe tomorrow…

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24th April 2007

long day, long week

It has been one hard week.

My trip to Ireland just about fell through. I found out on Monday that I had been scheduled for jeopardy call (meaning that if someone called in sick or had another type of emergency, I would be pulled from my regular rotation to cover) smack dab in the middle of my vacation…. See, my vacation was scheduled a year ago, for the last week of May. When Chris and I started discussing meeting up at the end of his travels, we decided that it would be best for all involved if it was the first week of May, instead of the last. Since I knew I was going to be on Neurology that month, I discussed it with my Neuro program director, he said that would be no problem, and I made the switch, contacted my clinic, found someone to cover my phone calls, etc. It wasn’t until about a month later that it dawned on me that I should ask Internal Medicine’s permission as well, because of the possibility of being pulled for jeopardy. I had already purchased my ticket by that point, so I meekly emailed them, told them what I had done and stated that I would be willing to do jeopardy any other time that month (except Laura’s wedding. I also didn’t exactly ask for their permission on that either….) and didn’t hear back from them. Not a word. I assumed, naively, I guess, that it meant that they had no problem.

Until of course, I opened up that schedule. I pretty much haven’t eaten all of this week, I’ve been absolutely sick with how I was going to fix this and dreading the repercussions when I told them that I was NOT going to be canceling my vacation over this.

Luckily, I received another email today, switching my week of Jeopardy call to the end of the month. It does mean that I won’t be able to go down to see Susan and her baby that weekend as planned, but we arranged things so I’ll be going down for a shorter time this weekend.

Oh the joys of being in two programs at once! I’m still rather upset that I found out a week before about the scheduling conflict, when it states in the official policy that you’ll know your jeopardy schedule several months in advance. Even if I had had just a month, I could have at least not felt quite so pressured to get it resolved now. I’m still somewhat on edge, waiting for someone to say “no” and mess it up again.

***
I went shopping for a skirt for Laura’s wedding today. Apparently spring is the wrong time to find a plain black skirt. Add to the shopping joy that instead of losing weight like I had hoped over the last two months, I’ve gained at least 10 pounds since November and weigh the most I ever have and jumped up yet another size. I did find some cute shirts that made me feel a little better about myself, but ugh.

****
Vienna Teng’s coming to concert in Chicago tomorrow. I had actually asked a boy to go with me… and he turned me down (had a good excuse, true). It’s okay. The relationship with him has been turning into exactly every other relationship I have with men: friends only. I’m just frustrated, frustrated that I am close to 30 and still playing the dating games of a 16 year old.

I had decided to go by myself anyway, to treat myself after this week… only to find out, as I clicked to buy tickets that it’s sold out. I could do the 10 o’clock show, but then I wouldn’t be back to Milwaukee until 3 in the morning… not good. So much for that.

***
Chris got back from his “bush adventures” across the southern part of Africa today and is now in Johannesburg. And I haven’t heard from him yet. *chews lip in worry* I’m sure he’s fine (I wouldn’t worry if it had been any other week, but sad to say, I do get a tad superstitious once in a while). Hopefully, he’ll be meeting up with claidheamhmor and melancthe in the next couple of days. I do hope that it all comes together and you have a lot of fun!

Anyway, must to bed. Another exciting day awaits me. *sigh*

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1st January 2007

Year end, year begins… reflections

The year of 2006 is now dead, settled into his grave, as the New Year now takes over reign. But, as is my nature, I could hardly let him go without a eulogy.

Highlights, month by month (with pictures! Lots and lots and lots of pictures)

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24th May 2006

Protected: Pictures as promised

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23rd May 2006

Meme and graduation…

Dear LJ

I am really, really getting tired of losing my pretty layout and settings. Sure it comes back eventually, but there’s a reason that I pay to have my pretty Anne picture as a header and the soft blues and greens that go so well together, because I like them better.

Fix it. I don’t care how. Or I will be making demands for repayment.

No love,
Julia

~*~

Dear CW network

You are morons. I hope you go bankrupted in two months. I will not be watching.

No love,
Julia

~*~

Dear Everwood

Can it be? You and I only have two more weeks together? *mourns* I shall miss you with your warm humor and delightful characters. However, may I offer one bit of advice? Perhaps if you didn’t have a cancer scare, a subdural hematoma that required surgical intervention (although injured!Bright was adorable), and a heart attack in one episode, we might be having a longer relationship together? Much as I love you, that was a little over the top. And I DON’T want to be crying at the finale, so everybody had better be alive and off to happy-ever-after-land, you got it?

Much love,
Julia

*****
From juno_magic:

Name ten of life’s simple pleasures that you like most (actually these will just be the 10 pleasures that strike me right now).

(I decided to forego the 6 facts about me, because I’ve been plugging away on the “100 random facts about me” meme that went around months ago and I don’t think I could come up with 106 different things about me!)

The simple pleasures (in good ol’ Late Show countdown fashion)

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7th July 2005

London

Found out about the attack from a television, while checking a surgical wound. It felt surreal. It still does.

Hugs, thoughts and prayers to those who were affected by these events. Special prayers and hugs to Ali (watcher_junior)–I hope your family, friends and other loved ones are safe.

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28th October 2004

perspective

Sometimes, you just need a moment to remember who you are… who you were…

I just got back from my grandparent’s. Their house hasn’t changed much–books are still piled all over, mixed with my grandmother’s knitting and writing projects, and Grandpa’s newspapers. The “willow” tree out front, where we cousins used to dress up and play “Little House on the Prairie” (I was Ma, ’cause I was the oldest. And my sister Laura was usually Laura, even though she was the youngest.) is larger now–we could no longer use the split in the trunk as a table. But there are still cats prowling around and apples in the orchard and swallow nests on the front porch.

Magic still lingers there.

My grandparents are getting old now. Late 70s with white hair and ill health. But Grandpa is already getting his snowmobile ready, at just the mention of an early winter. And Grandma has so many projects that I think she keeps to defend herself against death–she can’t go until it’s organized for her posterity.

I spent three days talking with my grandma about politics and religion, family and ancestors, art and poetry. We talked a lot about writing. I confessed that I still write when I can (although I don’t think she understood what fanfiction was).

Grandma writes–essays, short stories and poetry. It’s her poetry that I like the most.

PERSPECTIVES

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11th June 2004

And the guilt just keeps coming…

Parents were here. My great uncle died (I barely know him; we stayed once at his house when I was about 8) and they were in town to go to the funeral. Went out to dinner with them, where my mom reminded me that it was my dad’s birthday–two days ago!

I am slime.

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