If left to my own devices...

I could eat a dozen Dunkin' Donuts right now. You might think I'm exaggerating, and yes, while I do have a flair for the dramatic, I donut (haha) find the subject of donuts to be a joking matter. I know I could do it - especially if it was an assortment. My favorites are the strawberry frosted (with sprinkles - a bonus,) and the French cruller. I love French things. I also have a soft spot in my heart for the lemon filled with powdered sugar. Yum.

Quite the conundrum

My cat Leon is afraid of balloons. At the same time, he loves string, especially when its shiny, like ribbon. This poses a problem for him in this situation, as pulling the balloon ribbon makes the balloons move... which is to him, terrifying and unpredictable. This is the biggest dilemma in my animal's life at this time. Sometimes I'm jealous of him, does that make me weird?

Well rested

I hope you got the chance to rest and recharge this weekend. A new week is upon us. Fortunately for me I get more time to pontificate about what to make of this new week, as I forgot to press the start button on the dryer before Big Love and was met with a load of wet clothes a few moments ago. (Laundry continues to be a minor trial in our household.) Have a good Monday!

Ladies who brunch

This weekend one of my best gal pals, Carolina, was back in town. She recently moved to Seattle for her job - reducing the number of friends I have in Boston now by approximately 33%. But that's okay, because she has a great job and I'm so happy for her that she's starting a wonderful new chapter in her life. Gooo Carolina!
  Anywho, Carolina recently graduated from the prestigious Harvard Business School, so I depend on her for a lot of knowledge... such as who Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke are, and that drinking green tea reduces bloating. I bought some green tea tonight at the grocery store and already had a cup - I'll let you know how it pans out.
 So yesterday we went to UpStairs on the Square in Harvard Square.

When I walked in the carpet was leopard - which matches my snuggie! What a welcome!

The walls were hot pink, the chairs were gold, and the carpet zebra. Amazing. Plus they had a fire going. Our brunch/lunch was good, and the coffee was notably delicious.

Afterwards we went for a wee little walk about the square and had a stranger take a picture of our boots. He was wearing his earphones -  the east coast equivalent of 'don't talk to me please, I am uninterested in others and focused on my personal task at hand'... but Carolina isn't afraid of people and has this certain something (I think its part charm, part being hot,) and in the end he was happy to oblige us.

 I was so happy to see my friend. I hope you are having a good flight back Care-bear.

Is it happy hour yet?

Because I could really go for one of these. Delicious.

Bring It.

So, in preparation for the aforementioned honeymoon I'm thinking about doing P90X again. My husband and I have started this at least 3 times. I hope that conveys that we've given up doing it multiple times.  By the 4th week we usually fall of the bandwagon. While we're committed to it though - we are full of self-praise and righteousness. Some of my of my good gal pals Angelica and Ali sent it to me last summer. Geli and her husband would have made Tony proud- they built a P90X gym in their garage, and Ali was their faithful workout companion. They looked ammmaaazing. Xtreme, infact. So I wanted to be like them. I'm a copier.

 It works, there's no denying it... but I'm wimpy and I usually hurt myself doing the chin-ups. I guess I should say "I presently struggle with chin-ups."  Also, Ab-ripper X usually makes me cry a little. Again, because of the wimpy-ness. The husband has a bachelor party coming up for one of our favorite friends in March, and they're going to Vegas, so maybe that will be our motivation to get going. Wait, I'm not going... but maybe I'll just hitch along on P90X for the ride and moral support in the quest for making these bods some lean machines.

In 6 short months...

it will be our two year anniversary - and we shall celebrate by finally going on our honeymoon, and it will be glorious.
We're making the plans now... I can't wait.
For some reason I hate the thought of missing work. I hate even thinking about asking for the time off. I'm not sure why. Maybe its because last year in my residency one of my co-residents made it her job (no pun intended) to miss work and come up with ridiculous excuses for her absences. I usually ended up having to do her work. As an added bonus we were about the same height and both had brown hair and my non-caucasian program director couldn't tell us apart, and continually called me by her name. This, was frustrating. Well, I don't think that's it anyway, and, I digress.
I put off going on our honeymoon until I had a "job" and was settled in it, after a brief period of unemployment... then I thought about postponing again, just because I didn't want to ask for time off. Why am I this crazy? I don't know.  I guess I had to learn that going on vacation with your husband is more important than working, its an investment in your life together. Well, that was a good lesson. Plus, who doesn't want to go on a good vacay?
I love my husband, he's the sun and the moon to me, I can't wait for our honeymoon.

Above photo of the proposed destination by Mark Lewis/Getty Images for National Geographic.

Today's blessing

Pepperidge Farm Tahiti Cookies, you are a blessing.  I thought the Brussels were the best it could get, but you proved yourself to be a pleasant surprise.Thank you always and forever for being delicious.  What's that you say? "Enjoy a tropical getaway in every bite..."? Don't mind if I do.

Cool, calm, and collected.

I have always been sort of an anxious gal. Believe me, if you knew the rest of my family - you would see where this comes from. Compared to my mother and sister, I'm the laid-back one.
Not that this is bad - I think a lot of it stems from an eager to please, ambitious nature that we share. My mom and sister could really run the world... as the laid-back one, I'm less inclined to be able to handle the details of such a venture.

I have to say, I wish I could be more like Joan Holloway from Mad Men. You never see that lady sweat. She has a voice as smooth as silk, and is always the best dressed girl in the room. She's the go-to-girl who can handle anything - she's my inspiration.
I think we all have a desire to be confident, or at least seem confident. For me, I have to wonder - will that ever happen? I must say - I believe it to be way worse when someone has unsubstantiated arrogance. I've come across that a lot up here. So how can you be one while avoiding the other?

The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, says you should be calm and assertive. You are the pack leader. So then I walk into work, and I try to be the pack leader. Yes, I'm serious. I think to myself: "I am calm. I know what I'm doing, I'm the boss." Well, I'm not really the boss, but I'm in charge of my patients and I direct the assistants in their jobs. I'm also the young and petite, so stature is not on my side. A lot of my patients ask me how old I am and if I've been doing this for a long time. Unfortunately I can't say "SHH!" and prod them in the neck or kick them (gently) in the side to let them know I'm in charge.

On the up side, I recently found my glasses that I only pseudo-need, and I've been wearing them - lets see if that helps.

Getting started

I want to start a blog to write about my life here in Boston with my husband and our little cat. We're not sure if we'll stay in Boston for good - so I want to chronicle our lives here - for posterity's sake.

A big motivation for starting this blog was to encourage me to get off the couch and out into the world - which is hard for me. I need a push to get out the door... especially since it is freezing here this time of year. This is the view outside our window - where I'm inside, writing my new blog. The irony is not lost on me.


I love reading blogs to relax - and although I have my favorites, there really isn't one about living and working in Boston... at least the kind of way we live it.

We're pretty normal - we are enthusiastic about our careers and pretty devoted to each other, despite the bumps you encounter during marriage - but then there's life... everyday, traffic, getting behind a freaking city bus then a school bus when you're already late for work; spending more time with coworkers than you do with your own family - and speaking of family - when are we going to have kids anyway? Well, let me just tell you, not soon.

So speaking of my favorite blogs, which I'll have to keep a better handle on because sometimes I just keep clicking the favorite blogs of my favorite blogs and I don't realize which one said what - but somewhere out there, a wise woman made a new year's resolution to try and do one chore during the week so that everything doesn't pile up on the weekend. Inspired, I pledged to do the same - for me it was laundry. I should mention that I didn't make any kind of resolutions this year, so I was all too happy to hitch onto ones made by other people, (and by that I mean the reasonable, easy-ish ones.) I was totally going to do it tonight. But its Real Housewives of Orange County night, and lets face it, I'm going to watch TV instead. Besides, I organized some drawers at work today, that probably counts.

In any event, thanks for reading.