Sundays are for cooking

I bet you've been wondering what we eat on a regular basis here. Or maybe you haven't.  But either way, you're about to know!

I spent all day today cooking so I wouldn't have to during the week. If I don't make my lunch for the whole week on Sunday, I end up not doing it and having to eat out. So here are some of my cooking adventures!

When we visited Bobby in Cincinnati, he mentioned that sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night, it's because your blood sugar is out of whack. He said he eats a banana to fix it and it helps him go right back to sleep. So, since Zack like NEVER sleeps, we decided we'd get some bananas in case he wakes up and can't get back to sleep. But...he didn't have the problem before the bananas went bad. The only thing left to do was make banana bread. And probably buy more bananas, because eventually he'll wake up and be crabby about not being able to sleep.

And since everything is better with chocolate, I cut up some of the many Hershey kisses my mom sent me for my birthday and threw them in there. I should have used the dark chocolate ones and not the regular ones, but I wanted to save those for myself.

From what I hear, it's pretty good banana bread. I haven't actually had any yet, but I don't know how it could be bad.

While it baked, I decided to make something new! I'm doing this thing where I track my calories with My Fitness Pal. I wouldn't call it a diet, but it just kind of makes you eat less because you have to be honest with it and say what you ate. Anyway, I'd been reading about steel cut oats and how they're so good for you and whatever.  The only catch is, it's not like instant oatmeal--it takes like half an hour to make.

Usually I don't make it a point to buy organic food, since it's more expensive. But, I couldn't find the nonorganic version at Harris Teeter, so I guess I'll just be extra healthy. Basically all you do is measure 4 cups of water or milk, and then 1 cup oats and boil it til its not water anymore. I felt like it'd be weird with boiled milk? So I used water.

It took a while, but eventually became just mushy and not watery.  I like it! I usually like mushy things. I added some sugar and walnuts so it'd be less boring though. So my plan is to eat this for breakfast for four days and see if I still like it. Sometimes the texture of yogurt makes me want to gag, but hopefully this doesn't have that effect.

Then I need to make lunch for the week! I have a lot of extra vegetables that need to get used so I decided to do stir fry! I cut up onions, zucchini, and broccoli and set it aside. I needed to go work out, so I didn't want to get too deep into the cooking process. This also gave me time to soak the rice before I made it! That's something my grandmother always does, but I never really have time to because rice takes so long to begin with.

ThenI went and ran. I wanted to watch football while I ran since that's the only tolerable to distract myself from the fact that I'm running. BUT, only 2 of 4 treadmills had working TVs and the 2 good ones were taken. So I just had to listen music and struggle through the three miles. I've definitely had a better half hour.  When I came back, I was too hot and my feet hurt. So I had to take a shower before Zack and I embarked on a shared culinary adventure.

We'd read online about Shooter sandwiches. We thought they looked kind of cool so we decided to make some for ourselves! Some people do crazy things with them but we decided to keep it simple! Ours was just steak, onions, mushrooms for Zack, and bacon in a hollowed out sourdough bread loaf. I'll just post pictures of the process instead of explaining the entire thing.

Our loaves of bread!

Steaks! We originally thought we could fit two in each, but the loaves were too small!

These are the mushrooms Zack made. I still think mushrooms are gross.

Bacon! We eventually cooked six strips. We did not share this since strip between us.

Sauteed onions! way better than mushrooms!

Me hollowing out the bread loaves.

All the bread that came out of the two loaves.

Adding stuff into them!

Right before putting the lid on.

Them in the process of being smushed!

These were supposed to be bread crumbs, but I dropped them all over the floor so we couldn't eat them. It was kind of a bummer, but since everything else turned out well, I'll count them as a sacrifice to the cooking gods.

After we smushed the sandwiches, I went back to the stir fry! It's pretty easy. I basically just cooked all the vegetables and chicken in soy sauce and siracha and put it over rice. Our kitchen was just super hot from all the cooking and our super loud fan ended up turning on. Every time it turns on, I feel like it's judging me and calling me a bad cook.

At 5 we had to go to this Michigan in Washington dinner and meet all the interns for this semester. The last two times I've just stayed home by myself while Aaron and Zack go, but this time they put that you could bring a "life partner" or spouse with you if you wanted. So Zack put me down as a life partner, which I feel like is a big step in our relationship! Or maybe it just makes us sound like a gay couple from the early 90s. Who uses the term life partner anymore?

Very smushed. Very good.

The dinner was fun! I mean there's no real point. You're just supposed to mingle with the new interns and talk yourself up. I don't have a lot of talking up to do, and interns are only so interesting, but the other people sitting at our table were for real adults and were super nice. Also, I mean, you can't really be upset about free dinner from a program you didn't even participate in.

When we got back we cut open our sandwiches to see if they were sufficiently smushed! They looked pretty good! I'm excited to eat it for lunch tomorrow!

Also, you probably all got the snapchats, but for our work party on Friday my coworker Stephanie and I decided we'd try to extra celebrate the baby shower aspect of it and make a watermelon baby carriage!  I didn't get many pictures of the process because my hands were mostly covered in fruit guts all the time, but it wasn't so bad making it! Stephanie did the carving of the baby's head, but I hollowed out the watermelon and made room for the pacifier in its face.

It was definitely one of those projects were the longer you look at it, the worse you feel like it looks (much like at Painting With a Twist). We were worried it looked like  a severed baby head. Then we were worried it looked like dog/bear and not a baby.  I was also worried that Steph would have a really hard time getting it to work. I guess it was easy enough because she showed up at work with it on time!

At the party everyone was really impressed with our skills! A lot of people didn't get that we made and thought that we bought it! I mean, it ended up kind of cute, but I wouldn't definitely not pay money for this quality of work. We have another baby shower coming up in November, and obviously need to celebrate it in a similar fashion so it doesn't look like we're playing favorites. I'm not sure how to up our game though? I guess we have some time to brainstorm.

Anyway, sorry this isn't about actually interesting things, but this is all I've been doing this weekend.

To Keep Our Blog from Being Entirely About the Bachelor

I've come to the conclusion that weekends shorter than three days are hardly worth having.

Zack was in Vegas all of last week so I was living up the single lyfe! It was a little lonely, but it also felt good to be an independent woman for the first time in a while.

Friday I went out to this bar called The Mad Hatter with my coworkers. We don't go out super often, so that was nice! Also, rail drinks were only $3, which is super cheap for DC.  I was supposed to meet up with A-A-ron but he didn't have his plans together early enough so I went home, ate Chipotle, drank wine and watched 30 Rock. So that's pretty much straight spinster life right there.

Saturday Morning Brie and I went to the Newseum. It's one of DC's not-free museums, but, unlike the Spy Museum, I definitely thought it was worth it! Also, if you get ticket it's good for two days. So if we ever decide to go, we can do shifts and pay half as much!

They had an interesting/sad 9/11 exhibit. It's the antenna from the top of one of the towers and headlines from around the world on September 12th.  There's one that just reads "BASTARDS" as the headline. I don't know where that one was from, but that definitely doesn't seem like the best headline, you know? Also, some woman thought it was really interesting that none of our teachers told us what was going on while we were in class that day. And that even though my friend told me "Two planes ran into a building," I didn't get what was going on until way later that night.

They also had a lot of JFK stuff, which makes sense.  They have a 90 foot screen that shows scenes from his life. It was pretty interesting, but I think it's temporary.

Also that feeds directly into something pretty much tailor-made for Teeners. It's called "Make Some Noise" and is all about the student movements during the 1960s. They have the actual table from one of the first sit ins in Greensboro, NC. They've got a ton of pictures, and a lot of descriptions. I'm sure it's all much to elementary for you, Teener--after all, she is published on the matter.

My favorite, though, was the Pulitzer Prize Photographs. It was a lot more like a history lesson that just the news. A lot about the Vietnam War, though, which is always sad, and very frustrating. But I think they did a good job sprinkling in happy/unbelievable photos too so you didn't get too down.

But, the most surprising thing at the Newseum, to me, was that freaking LL Cool J explains your first amendment rights to you?  I can't say I'm familiar with the entirety of his work, but I definitely didn't think ANY of it touched on first amendment rights. But... I guess it's to make constitutional rights "cool" and "hip."

After that we got Chinese food and met up with Mattan, who had decided to shave his head bald. Turns out I'm really freaked out by bald heads. They just look so...vulnerable. So, if any of you are considering going completely bald, don't be surprised if I ask you to cover up.

Then we met up with Aaron and a bunch of his friends and went to the Pistons game! I got to see my favorite person in the world: Greg Monroe. The Pistons beat the Wizards, but missed two free throws in the fourth quarter so everyone in the stadium got free Chik-fil-a! It was really the best combination of things from my perspective.

Sunday I made orgasm brownies:

They were less fudgy than I wanted, but still tasted good.

I was a little bit rushed because I had to go all the way out to Silver Spring for a painting thing with Brie. (It was kind of like I dated Brie this weekend instead of Zack--we did a lot of stuff together)

When we got there the lady said that she didn't have our reservation, but she'd squeeze us in anyway.  It was in a restaurant/bar so there were people like actually eating and trying to just be normal, so that was a little weird. Also, there was way less instruction than what you get at Painting with a Twist, which made the experience feel more stressful, I feel. This is what I ended up with:

I guess it looks nice. You know how when you've looked at something too long, all you see is the mistakes? That's where I'm at right now.  The colors are nice though.

Then I had to rush home because Zack was finally back! We had like an hour before we went to Elizabeth's house to watch the premier of Sherlock.  I like Sherlock, but the problem is that every episode is 90 minutes long, so it's like a REALLY big commitment to watch one episode.  Elizabeth really went all out and had "fish and chips" (chips with goldfish), shepherd's pie, scones, tea, cider, and beer. She's always good for things like that.

People think he's cute. I don't see it. Like, at all.

After we got home Zack was crazy tired. So we went to bed. We also had to go bed early to be in top shape for babbbiiessssssss. We finally got to see our baby friends!

Zack traditionally takes care of Ben and I cuddle with Eli. So that's what we did. Though I did make friends with Ben too. Also Max, the old boy, thinks Zack is really cool so they play together. BUT this time I was the cool one because I brought Max a space book! Both of his parents were like "Oh wow, we've never seen this one before. Good find!" I hadn't even considered that he might already the book I had bought, but luckily he didn't have the one I got! We had to read it three times before we left and he was super into it each time.

Space book, best book.

Also we ate sushi. And the babies were naked for a little while, which is always cute. Then we went home, thinking we would have to go to work in the morning. BUT THEN WE DIDN'T WOOOOOOO

I happened to wake up at 4:30, checked the website that says whether or not the federal government is open (it wasn't) and then went back to sleep. At 6:30 my boss texted me telling me not to come in. At 7:30 a bunch of my coworkers texted me asking if we had work. So really, my sleeping was all messed up. So I got up and made hash browns and pancakes. Then we ate and went back to sleep til noon. You know, adult life. By the way, this is what it looked like outside until about 10:00am:

Then we went to Chik-fil-a to cash in on my free sandwich! I made a small snowman outside. Then I bought floss-y-thingies and we went back home. It was actually starting to snow a little. But you know, not like a ton. In all I think we got about two and a half inches. I guess they had four in Maryland. So, big whoop. It eventually looked like this:

There was a little more later. But I didn't take a picture.

I got bored, so I busted out my sewing machine and completed a project I'd put off for one and a half years:

Senegal pilloowsssss. Pretty easy to make! And now our couch is a little classier, but a little less school spirited.

Then Zack made us a nice dinner:

Chicken, rice, wine. Yum.

Then I had to go into work and answer my kajillion emails. That was less good. But you know, you don't look gift snow days in the mouth.

Babies, babies, and more babies!

I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO LOG ONTO THIS DUMB THING!

Anyway, this is going to be a story about my semester since the rest of you probably don't remember what school is like anymore.  I had my clinical in the NICU (that's the newborn ICU for those of you who are non medically inclined).  It was so. much. fun!  Seriously, I loved it and now it's my new dream job!  The nurses I worked with were super great and when I grow up I want to be like them.  Real personhood is only 142 days away!

Graduation take 2 is on May 3, in case any of you
feel like attending (I went to yours so I really expect
you all to be there with presents...a new car would be ideal)

So back to the NICU.  It's basically my dream come true.  I got to hang out with super teeny adorable babies every day!  The youngest ones I took care of were born at 23 weeks! (normal is 40 weeks).  They were so small, like 1.5lbs, sometimes.  I didn't really get to snuggle those ones because they were in incubators with lots of tubes hooked up.  But I did have to pick them up to assess them and it was like holding nothing.  They were sometimes smaller than the palm of my hand.  It was really cool to watch them grow and require less and less equipment every day.

This is what a 23 week baby looks like

This is a picture of a random child I found who was born
at 23 weeks and this is him at 16 months!

I also got to see those quints that were born in the summer before they went home!  They were all like 3 or 4 pounds which is amazing since there were five of them all sharing their mommy's tummy!

Awwwwwwwwww!  Babiessssss!

There were lots of really sick babies that I took care of, but also there were some that we call "feeder-growers".  These babies are usually born just a little early and so they're just not ready for the world!  They come to the NICU to learn how to eat and get big and strong like me.  These ones are really fun because you can hold them and feed them bottles and they're the perfect little cuddle size :)  On the other side of the spectrum, I saw a GIANT baby who was over 13 lbs when he was born!  He looked like a toddler!  

This is not even how extreme the comparison was between
him and my other babies

I could go on and on with my stories....but I'll save some for when I see you in 29 days!  Anywho, I fell in love with working in the NICU and last weekend I applied for my first real nurse job!!  I can't wait to be a job person like you guys (minus Bobby...but he wins anyways since he's dating me). 

Ok well I would have told you more about my life but I just realized I'm late to hand out MedBuddy tshirts so I'll write again soon!  Love and miss you all xoxo