A little less than six months...

I went to Jeff and Gloria's wedding this past weekend and Jeff made the unnerving observation that our wedding is six months away, to the date, from their wedding. Okay, so here are where Nik and I stand in the wedding planning: we have a place, a date, my ensemble, and the cake. Still remaining to be done: the caterer, invitations, photographer, florist, and probably a million other little things that I'm forgetting at the moment. *sigh* Does it get any easier? I'm just waiting for the date the come and go, since I have a feeling that the next few months will just fly by.

I feel very grown up at the point. Maybe that's why I've decided to start capitalizing on this blog post (ha, we'll see how long that lasts :P). I have a "real" job, I'm getting married, I'm moving out of the family home, Nik and I are looking at homes to buy.. all this foreign grown up stuff. I'm excited about Nik moving up north and the changes that that will inevitably bring, but it's a little nervewraking as well. I'm sure that I'll have my moments, but I'm excited about these changes and I'm going to try my best to enjoy the ride.

reading

lately, i've been returning to an old hobby: reading. i've theorized that since the advent of the internet, my attention span has dwindled to the point where i can barely read a paragraph before clicking onward to the next page. like so many other things, much of the credit goes to nik, since he's been encouraging me to read and we've been reading books together (we just finished the devil in the white city). now i've begun the ambitious project of compiling a list of books that i've been meaning to read and books that i want to re-read. it's become quite a long list.

i'm going to try to keep up with it. i'm really enjoying this hobby and i think that it taps into a part of my brain which has lay dormant for too long.

working the night shift

anyone who knows me well know that i'm certainly not a night owl. but here i am, 2 in the morning, writing a blog post. i've been working the night shift for a little over a month now. it's been quite an adjustment and i still find myself running out of steam by my last assessments around 4 or 5 in the morning.

you may be wondering about my work and how it's been going (or not). there are good days and bad days. some days i feel like i'm finally getting it: i'm on top of my assessments, my babies are being fed on time, and the night is going smoothly. and then there are the days where everything goes wrong: my meds are late, my babies are all crying, i'm scrambling to catch up on my charting, and my change of shift report is sorely lacking. for now, the bad days are outnumbering the good ones. i'm still feeling the growing pains of being a new nurse and it's been a rough couple of weeks.

however, the nurses on my unit have been wonderful and supportive, helping me out when i'm falling behind, reassuring me, and reminding me to not be so hard on myself. nik has also been wonderful and he usually gets the brunt of my work-related rants as i'm driving to or from work. nik always helps me put my work into perspective, and reminds me that it's only an aspect of my life. on the whole, my life is going great: family, friends, nik.. everything is going so well. also, even though i stress myself out, it's a good job.. after all, who else gets to feed and play with babies while they're working? i'm very lucky, but i think i have a tendency to take it for granted sometimes.

i hope that the work situation gets easier with time. i still feel that there's so much that i need to learn: about neonates, about treatments and therapies, about time management.. i have a long way to go. but i'm going to keep pressing forward and doing my best, and hopefully that'll be good enough.

first!

this'll be the first post of 2008. wow, it's been a while since i've written in here... so what's new? a lot. honestly, i want to write a huge update but it would take forever and i need to work early tomorrow. anyway, i'm sure most people are like me and have short attention spans. so a brief update:

1. spent new year's in houston with nik's friends and family
2. studied like a madwoman for the nclex
3. passed the nclex (yay!)
4. went to thailand, met nik's parents for the first time and had an awesome time
5. started work in the good sam nicu
6. went snowboarding for the first time with nik and his friends (painful, painful..)
   

and that's the basics.. there've been a few visits down to l.a. sprinkled in there, as well as a few visits from nik up north. big thing right now is work, of course... working with teeny-tiny babies has been a completely new experience.. nursing school doesn't give you the specialized knowledge that you need for nicu. also, although i work three days a week, 12-hour days are long.. and those extra four hours make a huge difference. i'm still getting used to being among the ranks of the income earning and employed.. weird transition.

a few projects here and there. i'm still knitting. i finished my first knitting project a little before the snow trip, just in time for nik to have a cozy scarf ready and waiting. i'm working on learning mandarin via pimsleur. there are a total of 90 30-minute lessons.. i'm on number 10. ouch. still running too. actually, i just registered for my first marathon which will be in december. one would assume that i have plenty of time to train, but i'm still trying to figure out how to plan my training runs around work and visits with nik.

ok. so that's my life in a nutshell... also, as you can see, i'm ditching the rest of my web site since it never got updated and facebook's better for that kind of stuff, anyway.

sometimes, the past comes back to haunt you

omigosh, on a whim, i was just looking at the old archived posts of this blog. can you believe that i've been writing in this blog since 2003?? i couldn't either...

i think i'm going to set up archiving for this blog. they're kind of fun to read through.. on a quickie glance-through, i had written a post obsessing about how david turned 27 and how old that made me feel. guess how old i am now? yup, that's right, i'm 27.

*sigh*

da dum dum dum da da

so i haven't written in here in a while. what've i been up to? well.. i've been making my way through my final semester of nursing school. even though it hasn't been terribly busy compared to the course load of other semesters, i still find ways to procrastinate and waste time, and end up being super-busy as i cram a ton of work into the course of a few days. some things never change...

my preceptorship has been an eye-opening experience. i still have so much that i need to learn, there are so many more skills that i need to acquire, and i definitely need to work faster. at this point, as a novice, i feel very far-removed from experienced nurses. sometimes i get caught up in making sure i make the grade and obsess about doing well in my tests. but as nik (appropriately) reminded me, it's not about getting the grade or passing boards, it's about doing right by your patients and having the information you need to know when your patients need it.

i definitely need to study/work harder. so for the next couple of weeks, i'll be working on knowing what i need to know to be a safe and effective nurse.. and hopefully i'll be able to pass the boards in the process.

another thing that i've been working on is my running. after the disneyland half, i set up a pretty ambitious goal of running 25 miles per week before the end of the year. so i've been tacking on the miles each week, and have been keeping a religious running schedule. up until last week, i had actually worked myself up to 21 miles a week. but.. unfortunately, between the rainy weather and getting the flu, i haven't been out to running much this week. now that i'm in the recovery stages of the flu, i plan to get back to running soon (maybe tomorrow). still have a week or so left!

also, if you haven't figured it out yet, i have a significant other. nik and i have been going out since february, so there've been a lot of trips up to the bay area on his part and lots of trips down to l.a. on my part. aside from the long-distance, things have been going wonderfully. the long-distance aspect of the relationship can be tough, but lots of phone calls, letters, and postcards, along with frequent visits do help.

so.. on to the primary reason for this post: I'M GRADUATING TOMORROW! it's been a tough year and half, but i made it out in one piece--mostly through support from nik, my family, friends, and classmates... i feel very lucky to have been surrounded such a good group of people throughout this time.

the title of this post? it goes to the tune of 'pomp and circumstance'.

mm.. yogurt-ey goodness

while i was visiting my grandma this summer, i discovered that canada is THE place for yogurt-ey goodness. pinkberry and the like are okay, but they don't hold anything over yogen fruz. which, i'm excited to announce is making its debut in the u.s.!

unlike pinkberry, which simply puts mix-ins on the side of the yogurt, yogen fruz actually mixes fresh frozen fruit into the yogurt.. which equals super-duper yummy yogurt. plus it's canadian and most canadian things are good (i.e., celine dion, etc.).

mm.. yogurt...

inspired!

running a race is always so inspiring. you have the hoards of runners, blaring music, the crowds cheering.. and the energy. there's just so much energy during a race that you don't have during a normal i'm-jogging-by-myself-for-kicks run. despite the fact that nik put together an awesome training schedule for me, i ended up slacking on my training about a month or so before the race. not ideal.

anyway, i still had a good time. even though the race started at 6 am, it was super-duper hot as the sun started rising. still, it was great to run through the parks, it was fun with the characters cheering you on and people running off the course to take pictures. the run through anaheim was torturous. we ran up and down streets as the sun rose, and it felt like it would never end. when we finally got to angel stadium, there was an awesome group of boy scouts and girl scouts who cheered for us on either side, and running into the stadium and around the field was a pretty neat experience.

good times. next time, more training. and there definitely will be a next time.. now i'm inspired. (see the castle in the background? awesome!)

THE LAST SEMESTER!

just when i thought it'd never end, i'm heading off into my last semester of nursing school. things are quiet so far, and i'm catching on some reading--i spent the last few days reading life of pi.. no school reading yet, thank you very much. anyway, i find myself trying to read more often these days, probably from nik's influence, and it's a good thing. i miss reading books.

i also got back from a road trip up to portland and seattle about a week ago. my brief vacations and short and precious, so i try to make the most of them.

a flock of birds flying along the oregon coast

crater lake

kwik-e update

ALMOST done with my next to the last semester. i still have a few random things that i need to work on here and there, but i'm pretty much there (thank goodness!). just one more semester to finish my degree, the nclex to take, and i'll be a nurse! i'll write more later, but i just wanted to update with a picture, because i recently went down to the l.a. kwik-e mart with nik and a few friends...

dood, i've never had to wait in line to get in a convenience store before, but i guess it was worth it, because i got to take a picture with apu! (and eat a terrifyingly sweet pink, sprinkilicious donut)

continued...

writing more, as promised. i'm always getting myself distracted with nonschool stuff when i'm supposed to be working on school stuff. but that's not really anything new...

anyhoo.. let's see, recent life-going-ons... finished yet another semester of the nursing program. although i finish at the end of this year, it still feels like aeons away since i still have to get through this summer and the fall. spring semester was crazy. with the completion of each project or exam, it felt like there was another project or exam to work on.. and the semester just went on and on like that, from deadline to deadline. and what about all that baking and knitting that i had done over the winter break? nope.. no time for that. i think i'll have to hone my baking and knitting skills after i pass the n-clex.

but it was funny, last semester as i was just walking down the halls at regional, and i was thinking to myself, "i can't believe how much i've learned in the past few semesters." really, it's true. i can't hardly believe it, but i'm really almost there (even though it feels like a long ways away).

i've been up to other things other than school too, but i'll write more about that later...

oh! and i'm running the disney 1/2 marathon in september with anny, kent, and joanna. getting my body into running shape again sucks. i was running all through fall of last year, but it just went down the drains after winter and spring. working my way up to 13.1 miles sure isn't fun.

penguin.. eddy penguin, signing off.

dreams

lately, i've been having weird dreams with people from my past. it's just weird.. i haven't seen some people in ages, yet they keep coming up in my dreams. isn't that odd?

okay.. now i guess i shouldn't be writing just now. i actually have an assignment due today, which isn't done yet and (in typical amy fashion) i'm working on it right now.

i'll write more later.

apple banana muffcakes

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2/3 cup shortening
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 apples - peeled, cored and shredded

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour 24 muffin cups, or use paper liners. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla and buttermilk. Beat in the flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated. Fold in the mashed bananas and shredded apples. Fill each muffin cup half full.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool.

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

ha, so i should be studying for a med-surg midterm tomorrow, but was having a muffin craving, so what better time to bake? i've made this recipe many times before and it's not bad. as always, i substitute vegetable oil for shortening and substitute yogurt for buttermilk. somehow, i think that they end up being healthier this way... i also reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup white and 1/2 brown. unintentionally, i also used 1 cup all purpose flour and 1 cup wheat flour (since we ran out of all purpose). so all in all, these muffcakes ended up being pretty healthy considering the ingredients. i call them muffcakes because the recipe calls them cupcakes, but i honestly think that they're more muffin-like than cupcake-like, but maybe that's just me.


anyway, hope that everyone that i haven't kept up with is doing well. drop me a line if i haven't heard from you in a while!

happy (chinese) new year

so today is chinese new year's eve. no resolutions yet. but i'm sitting here in front of my computer, wearing my running clothes, so hopefully i'll go for a run. it's been a busy past couple of weeks. a lot of things have been going on, and i certainly haven't had time for baking in a while (although my mom still wants more zuchini bread). =P i've been doing a lot school-wise, those three clinical days a week have been interesting. personal life-wise.. it's good, and there's been some stuff going on lately.

i'll write more later. but if i keep procrastinating, i'm not going to run. so i'd better go.

chocolate chip cookies 2

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

(from allrecipes.com)

so is it that obvious that i love allrecipes.com? i was kinda hesitant to try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. after all, the other one was an obvious winner, so why redo an already good thing? but during my small group this week, one of the members brought these awesome, soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies, and i thought that maybe it's time for a change. you know, the recipe says chewy, but they aren't really. i'm not sure if it's the way i'm shaping them or what it is, but they're just not coming out soft and chewy. my cookies are always fat and round. still, the recipe's a good one, uses less butter than the other recipe, and (according to my older brother) they're softer than the other cookies (although i think that may have to do with the fact that he ate these cookies right after they came out of the oven).

so the older brother deemed them better than the other cookie since they 1) have less butter and 2) are softer. i'm not sure about that, but anyway...

(as an aside, i made these terrible oatmeal cookies about a week ago. my mom wanted me to try this recipe on the back of the oatmeal container. we didn't have shortening, so i tried to substitute using butter and vegetable oil.. *sigh* another case of a substitution gone very, very wrong. the cookies looked okay.. in fact, i'd say they looked good. but they were rock solid. i guess that's what happens when you get rid of fat. i'm not sharing this one though...)

cranberry oatmeal cookies

• 1 1/2 cups sweetened dried cranberries
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped white chocolate

1. In a small bowl, soak dried cranberries in orange juice to soften, about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg. Combine the oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Drain cranberries and stir into the dough along with white chocolate making sure not to over-mix and make tough cookies. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

(from allrecipes.com)

for christmas, matthew gave me a bag of white chocolate chips and dried cranberries (it's obvious he wants something =P). so i felt obligated to bake something using these ingredients. so i searched on allrecipes.com for a recipe using these two ingredients, and this recipe came up. i normally don't use a recipe which hasn't been reviewed too much and which doesn't have a picture, but there weren't many options for recipes using white chocolate chips and cranberries, so i decided to give it a go. i must say, the dough was DRY before i added the cranberries to the mix and it was kind of scary looking. but the cranberries (which had been soaking in oj) added plenty of moisture when i added them. it actually made the dough really WET, which looked scary too.

anyway, after baking the cookies up, the thing about these cookies is that they look FUNNY. they look kind of pale, doughy, and raw on the top even though the dough is cooked through, and the shape that they take on is irregular. i tried different ways of shaping the dough, but i can't seem to make these cookies pretty. thankfully, i gotta say that they taste great. it's a good recipe, and the very sweet white chocolate perfectly offsets the tart cranberry. oh well, it's all the same in your stomach, no matter what it looks like...

brownies

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.
2. In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook.

(from allrecipes.com)

wow, i love making brownies - so easy and no fuss (no grating vegetables.. thank goodness!). they came out kinda rich for my taste, but then i guess brownies aren't supposed to come out light and fluffy either. i skipped out on the frosting since i'm not much of a frosting fan in the first place, and that was fine. i was thinking of doing the healthy substitution of using applesauce for butter, but i had a bit of a brownie disaster about a week ago, so i decided to stick with the butter this time around, but maybe i'll modify it the next time around. stay safe and happy new year!


oh, and here's a picture of a whole different kind of brownie (ha!):

chocolate chip cookies

• 2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
  
• 1 c butter, softened
• 3/4 c packed brown sugar
• 1/4 c white sugar
• 1 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 c semisweet chocolate chips

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees f (175 degrees c). sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, set aside.
2. in a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. stir in the eggs and vanilla. blend in the flour mixture. finally, stir in the chocolate chips. drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. edges should be golden brown.

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

these are totally killer chocolate chip cookies. i used another adaption of this recipe with a 1/4 cup more flour, which was fine, but i think that this one is definitely it. i used ghirardelli 60% cacao baking chips for some extra "omph" and they are awesome. i love my dark chocolate... suzanne (the baker extraordinaire) has also baked a variation of this recipe using chocolate pudding and white chocolate chips, and they come out great that way too.

zucchini (or carrot) cake

another recent obsession of mine has been baking. there've been a few hits, but also the failed tries that ended up in the trash can. here's a good one that i got from my mom:

• 3 eggs
• 2 c sugar
• 1 c oil
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 2 c flour
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 c grated zucchini (or carrot)
• 3/4 c walnuts
• 1 1/3 c raisins

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees f. grease and flour pan (9 x 13 x 2) or bundt pan. sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder in bowl. set aside.
2. in a large bowl, mix together sugar and oil until light and fluffy. beat in the eggs one at a time, and then stir in the vanilla. add the flour mixture and mix just until incorporated. add the grated zucchini (or carrot), walnuts, and raisins.
3. bake for 50 to 60 minutes in preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

i followed the recipe to the tee except for the fact that i only added 1 1/2 cups of sugar.. i actually think it'd probably still taste good with only 1 cup of sugar (i'll try it out and update later). another tidbit is that i squeezed the moisture out of the grated zucchini with a cheesecloth. it worked out pretty well, as the cake didn't come out too soggy.

my gauge for a good recipe is seeing what the family's reaction is. unanimous approval on this one. merry christmas and happy baking!

** UPDATE (12/27/06): so the cake was so popular that it disappeared almost instantaneously and my mom requested that i make more. instead of using zucchini this time, i used carrots using almost the exact same method except for the fact that i reduced the amount of sugar, using 3/4 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. that ended up tasting fine, but the big issue with carrot cake is that i squeezed the moisture out the grated carrots like i had done with the zucchini cake. totally unnecessary since carrots are (according to my mom) a drier vegetable. so the carrot cake ended up coming up much drier than the zucchini cake. next time: no squeezing the carrots.


p.s. i did learn how to knit after all! i'll post a picture of the finished product when i'm done.

procrastination

i was just telling judy today, i'm such a spazz. remember the last post where i mentioned that i finally wanted to learn how to knit? so i've apparently taken this resolution to heart and i've been spending way too much time learning how to cast on (i think i got it!), checking to see what types of needles and yarn i should purchase, and checking out free knitting patterns online. all of this BEFORE i have my last final on friday.

i'm a dork.

so between my knitting research and playing hours (sadly, i'm not exaggerating) of solitaire, i've been working on getting all the gi disorders down, and i still have yet to go through the renal material and all the stuff on fractures.. and then there's still all the cumulative material that i haven't yet reviewed.

okay.. need. to. study.