"Nothing's going to change my world"

Whenever I'm on vacation on Cape Cod, I never know what is going on in the outside world. Mainly, this occurs because I don't watch the news or check the news online or read any newspapers other than the local Enterprise. One might think that reading the local paper would give me some inkling of happenings of import, but when the police log discusses details about "12 burlap sacks removed from trees, and the victim requested that police patrol her neighborhood more often", there isn't a whole lot of room left for news of national import. But, you can bet that the police log is entertaining!

But, I don't mind. It allows me, if just briefly, to live in a world where everything is good and right and nothing bad happens. It's good for the psyche to live in such a world just for a bit. Even if it's not real.

Because that world doesn't really exist. Today, I decided to check the news online, and the first story I happened upon involved an 11 year-old girl who died of hypothermia in Shoshone, Idaho. Her father and a friend were driving her and her brother to their mom's house for Christmas. The car got caught in a snowbank, and her father told the brother and sister to walk the almost 10 miles to their mom's house. Rescue workers had to traipse through 4-foot high snowbanks to rescue the brother who had taken off some of his clothes due to hypothermia-induced delirium. This happened on Christmas Day.

I think I'll go back to my happy bubble for a while, thank you.

I love vacation.

This morning, I was struggling with trying to decide amongst the following activities:

1. Read. I've already finished two books while on vacation... Kath's new book, The Abstinence Teacher, and a Joe Lincoln.
2. Knit. I have a scarf for Katherine in the making, but I've made steady progress already.
3. Read blogs. Hmmm... have neglected that lately due to all of my traveling.
4. Watch one of the umpteen DVDs we got for Christmas. Difficult, because there were so many to choose from (Sex and the City movie, The Devil Wears Prada, How I Met Your Mother, Fried Green Tomatoes, Atonement, Once, Home Alone, Meet the Fockers, Juno)

I chose to watch Sex and the City. It was so vacation-y. And, I could watch that scene where Steve and Miranda reunite over and over again. Ahhh, romance. Kath was trying to read next to me, but she ended up putting her book down and getting sucked in as well. (She hates to give in to the pull of SATC.)

I've also been going to bed around 10pm every night and waking up around 9am in the morning. I could become very spoiled by this life.

Have a very merry Christmas.

I hope you have fun
with near ones and dear ones,
the old and the young.

Have a very Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year.
Let's hope it's a good one
without any fear.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I'm in Lebanon NH tonight and the snow is coming down. One thing is for sure... all of my years in Iowa have not taken the ability to drive in the snow out of me. There is nothing like slipping and sliding around on a snow-covered road... where when you turn the corner you feel your back wheels slipping out... aaahhhh... It's just like riding a bike. It all comes back to you once you've mastered it.

Things I dislike

1. Icy roads
2. Rental cars with no windshield washer fluid
3. Rental cars without car manuals
4. Rental cars that apparently do not allow one to open the hood and refill the windshield washer fluid
5. Needing to be somewhere by a certain time
6. The combination of all of the above

Home is where the heart is.

Poor Katherine. For the past two days, I've been sporadically aware of the fact that I'm leaving today and won't be back until a month from now - well January 10th to be exact. This week involves taking one part of my Board exam in Chicago on Tuesday, and then flying to New England for additional residency interviews on Thursday and Friday. Then we'll spend two weeks on Cape Cod with a jaunt up to Vermont in the mix over Christmas and New Year's, and finally more interviews during the week after New Year's.

It'll be a busy and fun time. I'm looking forward to the holidays, spending time with family, baking, decorating a tree, and singing Christmas songs.

I just hate the leaving part. My poor kitties. I keep hugging and kissing them and telling them not to forget me. They're probably thinking... "Why won't she just leave us alone! We're just trying to sleep."

I just love being at home with my cutie-patooties, Katherine included. ;)

I need my fix.

I woke up this morning to find that we were out of coffee. Oh, the horror. Plus, I was going to be at home studying for a few hours. And, it was quite chilly out so I didn't want to walk down to the coffee shop (almost a quarter mile!).

So, I sat on the couch for an hour, pining away for a cup of coffee.

But then, I spied a cup sitting next to me on the side table, with a half of a cup of coffee from the previous day that I had left out. So, I warmed it up in the microwave and drank it.

Warmed up, day old coffee with milk and sugar is not the greatest. This gray coffee-colored skin of milk formed and I would get clumps of it in my mouth.

But, desperate times call for desperate measures. Katherine is unbelievably disgusted by this and says that I am a junkie.

That may be. I won't tell her about my past experiences that involved eating food that I took out of the garbage.

Anyway, it's just coffee.