Freedom

Saturday marked the official start of my 1 week Christmas vacation.  Yipee!!  I'm very thankful that our residency program allows a full week off at either Christmas or New Years.  Since Thanksgiving, I had worked every single day.  Mostly 14 hour days.  Simple pleasures such as enjoying the sunlight are lost when you walk in to work at 4:25am and walk out sometime after 6pm.  I'm learning a ton and getting to do several surgeries, yet regardless of the fun, I was pretty darn exhausted.  There comes a point where you are desperate to reconnect with life outside the hospital and the OR fluorescent lights.  So, my week away is all about that - reconnecting to life, sunlight, cooking, sleeping in, family, workouts, laziness, and fun.

Saturday featured catching up on sleep, enjoying a run (only the second in since my thanksgiving 13.1), Mellow Mushroom Mega Veggie pizza, and shopping.  Sunday started out with a 90 minute bike workout, and then was followed by baking, a little Christmas gift hunting, and a family dinner.

Snack plate lunch - veggies + lemony hummus, wasa + eggplant spread, veggie pizza, grapes

Family Dinner - Black Bean Burgers + Butternut Squash "Fries" + Stir Fry Veggies
Obviously I was too focused on satisfying my hunger that I failed to capture the meal on film until I had already demolished 50% of my meal.

 I was wide awake at 4:30am this morning.  Obviously my body clock has gotten a little to used to waking up at such a crazy early hour.  After a couple hours of reading the newspaper and playing words with friends and sodoku, I finally fell back asleep until 9am.  Crazy to think that I'm normally 5 hours into my workday at that point!  A lazy breakfast + coffee sipping was on the agenda first.

Breakfast included a protein pancake topped with nutella, banana, and strawberries served with a clementine on the side.

I followed breakfast with a few errands, a swim, and a trip to the dentist.  I had grand plans of heading directly from the dentist office to The Sport Factory for strength + yoga.  Unfortunately, I was left sitting in the office waiting (VERY IMPATIENTLY) for the dentist until 5:20pm.  Despite the fact that I got a great report on healthy teeth, I was left feeling frustrated that there was no way possible I was going to get from Woodstock to Roswell in a mere 10 minutes.  I hit up the weights back at home, but it certainly wasn't the same.

Fun at the dentist - not exactly how I anticipated spending 1.5 hours of my afternoon.

Tomorrow's agenda includes a run with dad, grocery shopping, a mani/pedi date with mom, and some much needed lounging on the couch curled up with a good book.  Oh, and I can't forget about the cookie baking to be done!