The Year's Top Ten

Now, in no particular order here are the . . .

Top Ten Things that Rocked My World This Year

1. Nasal Rinse. If you have a cold, sinus infection, or otherwise snotty nose you MUST use this.
2. Bagel Making. Who knew it was so easy?!
3. Africa. It pretty much speaks for itself but have your friend of 17 years there and it's even better!
4. M.
5. Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred DVD. She will kick your butt over and over again and you'll keep coming back for more.
6. My Sewing Machine. From aprons to Halloween costumes, this machine does it all!
7. Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. I don't know how I ever lived without one before now and if you like to make bread, this will make you love to make bread.
8. Apple Cake. Heaven in a cake. Even better toasted and buttered.
9. Pandora.com Only the best online mix of music. Too bad they have started to stop the streaming every 20 minutes or so if you don't click on their web page.
10. Snow. Living on the east coast means real live snow and it's still just as wonderful as the first time I saw it falling.
    

I must have been really good this year

I have to say my 4-day Christmas Vacation was pretty awesome.

Not only did I get one of these:

But I also got one of these:


The low-light of the weekend was almost sending myself to the ER and burning a hole through the arm of my bath robe. You see I was baking apple cranberry crumble pies and when I went to take them out of the oven I misjudged how close my arm was to the heating element on the top of the oven. Lucky for me the bath robe protected my arm. Unfortunately the bath robe now has a huge burn hole in the sleeve. Lucky for me my friends here in Alexandria gave me a new bath robe for Christmas.

The highlight of the weekend was using the stand mixer. I couldn't wait to get it out of the box which meant that M benefited from ultimate chocolate chip cookies and homemade white bread this weekend. As he says, it was an instant return-on-investment. I'm looking forward to making bagel dough in the mixer as it is a little tedious by hand and also trying out foccacia bread. Ever since college I have wanted to make that at home.

Ding Dong Brrrrr!

This morning it was 1F. Okay so it was really 17F with a windchill to 1F but still it was really cold. With yesterday being the official start of winter I guess this is to be expected but it doesn't mean I have to like it. If only it would get back to the 30s again. <---- I can't believe this California girl really just typed that!

Today I also got to install my wireless door bell at work. It's so much fun! In case you are confused as to why a dietitian would need a doorbell, here's the story. When patients arrive they check in at the front desk. The front desk person then prints an encounter, attaches it to the patients chart and then puts the chart in my box. My box is located near the front desk; outside of my office through a door and around the corner. So in order to see whether my patients were here I used to have to get up every five minutes and walk over to check my box. Which meant that if a patient didn't show up I spent the half hour constantly checking my box instead of getting on with other work. Now that there's a doorbell, the front desk staff simply rings the doorbell when they put a chart in my box. So I can stay in my office and get work done instead of constantly checking to see if my patients are there. It's really exciting.

Time for Change

Despite having a sinus infection and mucous the color of yellow highlighter, it's been a good week thus far. I had a meeting with my boss yesterday to discuss my position at the clinic and I feel that it was very successful. We touched on a lot of topics that have been bothering me for sometime and I feel like she listened and acknowledged what I had to say. Whether things will change or not, only time will tell, but at least I have said what I needed to. Moving forward I think I will be able to do more of what I like and less of what I don't like. Always a plus in my book!

This week I have also discovered the wonders of Christmas shopping online. I haven't set foot in a shopping mall in a very long time and was actually dreading getting all my Christmas shopping done. Until I realized that with a few clicks here and there I could complete all my shopping online. In about 20 minutes. Yeah, I know I'm a little slow at this realization but better late then never, right?! I still have a few Secret Santa gifts to purchase but the family is done and for that I am relieved. Unfortunately I won't be there to see the looks on their faces as they unwrap their presents but I am sure they will tell me all about it over the phone.

Nutrition Group Classes

Today I remembered what it is that I like about out-patient nutrition counseling . . .the group classes. Group classes allow the patients to interact not only with you but also with the other patients that have similar medical conditions. The patients joke, commiserate, learn and grow together. It's awesome and honestly it's the first time that I have been left with a smile on my face after working with Adults for a long time.

Today was my first Diabetes nutrition class. Usually I counsel the adults one-on-one for half an hour sessions. Today I attempted to counsel 10 adults in one hour. I say attempted because unfortunately the weather was against me and only three showed up, but still it was tons of fun. I even had my new 3D food models to show them visually what 1/3 of a cup of brown rice really looks like. It's funny to see how shocked they are when they think about how much they usually eat!

But seriously, from here out group classes are the only thing I want to teach. Forget one on one counseling, or only make it one day a week. Group teaching is not as tiring as saying the same thing over and over again to different people all day long. Plus you get energy off of the group you have at your table, not all the time but I would hazard to say the majority of the classes. This reminds me why I wasn't so opposed to my nutrition rotation at Kaiser out-patient in Los Angeles.

Can Today Get Any Better?

So I don't want to jinx it but today has been a really good day.

• Despite being rainy it's 60 degrees outside.
• Two of today's patients have lost between 6-8 pounds in the past 6 weeks. And one of these patients was a patient that has been unmotivated to change for the past four months.
• I was able to get a substitute for work on Saturday so I can go out of town for the day.
• I'm going to the Caps hockey game tonight.
• I don't have to empty out my kitchen for roach treatment this Friday. I've actually not even seen a baby roach for the past four months.
• I got super cute pictures of Paige's little boys in the mail.

Weather Rollercoaster

Yesterday it was 27F. Today it's 50F. Tomorrow they say it will be 60F. But don't worry at the weekend it will be back to 30F. What is going on here?

It Snowed!

It sure did! Yesterday, or maybe it was Saturday. Either way it snowed and I saw it. We've been having a few random snow flurries here and there recently but since my office doesn't have a window I had missed them all. But I saw this one. It was awesome. It even stuck on the cars for a little bit.

This morning it was 27F. Brrrr.

All Clear

My house is finally void of Thanksgiving visitors. On Monday I took my parents to the airport and last night I took Olive the cat back to her house. I have to say it's kinda weird walking around my apartment with no one else there. I still hear the neighbors above and the people outside but it's definitely quite without parents or a cat around.

After Thanksgiving