Let's see . . . last I left off I had just returned home after a wonderful Christmas week in Atlanta. It was unusually warm and my last day of vacation was spent sitting outside in the North Georgia Mountains sipping wine. Life just seemed so perfect!
If my absence here is any indications, things in Charlotte have been non-stop crazy since New Year's week. December 28th marked my start of my 3 month stint as the orthopaedic trauma chief. It may sound a glitzy title, but I assure you there's nothing fun or glamorous about it. There just simply aren't enough hours in the week to enjoy yourself when you spend 80+ hours at work. The good news is that as of today, the first 5 weeks are behind me. The bad news is that I still have 9 weeks to go.
Along with the rest of the east coast, Charlotte was pounded by winter storm Jonas last week. The ice started in the early morning hours on Friday, just in time to make my 4:30am drive to work a little slippery.
Road conditions deteriorated during the day, and rendered me and my 2-wheel drive car stranded at the hospital overnight. Nearly 40 hours later after Saturday call (plenty of accidents and falls on ice generating orthopaedic injuries!), I made it home.
I've had just a couple weekends off in the past five weeks and I was fortunate enough to spend one of those with a horrible stomach virus. I'll spare you the details and just say I spent most of the day on the bathroom floor. When I do have a rare Saturday or Sunday to sleep in, I've been spending a couple lazy hours in bed with a mug of tea, reading a book, or watching the Today Show.
A little while later, I wonder down to the kitchen and make breakfast - typical pancakes or eggs. It's simple pleasures such as these that I've come to cherish amongst the hectic schedule this month.
This morning's breakfast was enjoyed al fresco in the sunshine and included eggs with salt, pepper, and rosemary, an english muffin, and warm cinnamon apples.
Here are a few meals from December that never found their way off my camera. First up was a mix of roasted vegetables - cinnamon dusted acorn squash drizzled with molasses, green beans, a mixm of radishes and turnips, and sautéed greens.
Another night featured a chopped veggie salad topped with a veggie burger and served with some roasted sweet potatoes.
And finally, one of my favorite weekend lunches - a fried egg sandwich on cranberry orange bread with spinach, tomato, and a smear of pumpkin cream cheese. Delicious!
My current dinner strategy is to make a large meal on Sunday night and then eat it in various forms throughout the week. Last Sunday's prep work resulted in some great easy dinners this week, which are critical when I get home late and want nothing more than to go to bed. I roasted purple sweet potatoes on one sheet pan, a mix of snap peas and mushrooms on another sheet pan, prepared multicolor quinoa, and sautéed red cabbage with some apple cider vinegar. At the same time I prepared a vegan garlic "cheese" sauce from Veganomicon. Once it was all ready, I put a scoop of quinoa on a place, topped with the vegetables and sweet potatoes, and drizzled some sauce over the top. I looked forward to that meal every night of the week!
This weekend's weather is exactly why I love living in the south. Last weekend we froze in a mix of ice and snow. This weekend, however the sun has been bright and temperatures have been in the high 60s. I've spent a couple hours each day soaking up some vitamin D and catching up on sleep on the lounge chair on my deck.
Yesterday I enjoyed a beautifully sunny 10 mile run, and today's forecast was so wonderful that it meant my first bike ride outside since November. Two hours on a bike with friends in the sunshine was exactly what I needed to carry me through another week of trauma.
No comments:
Post a Comment