So that was 2015

2015 is done and over -- we are now a whole four days into 2016. It's a new year. We rang in the new year in Buxton, ME at a home with a few friends. It was strikingly beautiful -- an old schoolhouse restored to be a home, complete with a spiral staircase. It was cozy, relaxing, and a great place to think and eat an obscene amount of food. Take a foodie on vacation, you're going to get a lot of food. That's right, I've embraced my foodie nature.

2015 was a big year, year in review:

1. I turned in my residency applications.

2. Started my last year, last year of medical school


3. Broke and finally bought a kindle and regret NOTHING

4. Took up acrylic painting

5. Turned my house inside out cleaning it and throwing things away after reading this book. It's life changing.

6. Made some wonderful friends

7. Visited some of my friends in their new homes

8. Found my favorite restaurant in Cambridge. This love is real. 


9. Started family dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, and love it.

10. Appreciated my family more.


11. Discovered burrata. Nothing has been the same.

12. Saw my best friend marry. This was an incredible experience I feel privileged to have been a part of.

13. Acquired and lost a selfie stick. May your new home be as good as the one I provided you oh selfie stick.

14. Experienced the kindness of my fellow Wellesley alums who housed me on the interview trail. Thank you Ale and Christine.
15. Spent time with friends in new cities.

16. Learned how to spend time with myself.
17. Fell more in love with my husband. And his beard.

18. Fell more in love with my dogs.

19. Realized how unbelievably proud I am of Tyler.

20. Made this freaking awesome yule log.

That's the short list. Who knows what this year will bring...will I match? Where will I match? What is Tyler going to do? Where will we be? What adventures will we have? Who knows, but I'm excited to find out.

DIY Candy Gifts 2016

Hello world! I'm doing a gift post before January! I'm so happy, it's an accomplishment really. The joys of being a fourth year medical student. Anyways, this year I've tried using the phrase "holiday gifts" or "winter gifts" rather than Christmas gifts to be more inclusive to those people that don't celebrate Christmas. I don't, but I grew up celebrating "commercial Christmas" with my family, so we would always say Merry Christmas to people. I didn't think of the religious connotations till college when a friend of mine said, oh, I don't celebrate Christmas. So I tried switching my vocalizations to Winter Celebrations, or Happy Winter! It's a small correction, but it costs me nothing.

That's the thing, about "being PC" it's really just me saying that this thing that I'm doing/saying hurts/offends/excludes you, and it costs me nothing or very little to change, but it costs you a lot when you hear me say...make a joke about women, minorities, immigrants, etc. So I might as well change it. I don't understand the whole "our country is too PC" rhetoric that seems to have taken over some political stages. People are mad that they can't tell an off-color joke?

Frequently I find that people make hyperbolic examples to make their point that being "too PC" is a problem. For example it would not be unreasonable to hear someone say "Well, pink socks offend me/trigger me, so stop wearing them." This makes no sense not only because of the obvious hyperbole that usually the product of not being able to find a real example, but also because the issue of offensive jokes, etc is not that it affects one person, but rather an entire group of people that live a similar experience. Rather it seems like the polite, empathetic thing to do is to, when called out, think about why someone is saying they don't want you to tell that joke/say that thing/whatever else rather than just roll your eyes about having to "be too PC."

Now! On to these totally awesome DIY Winter gifts. During the winter months, no matter where you are, it gets colder...and for me that means time for hearty soups, casseroles, and candy.

So I figured what better way to help celebrate the coming of winter and the ringing in of the new year than with some simple to make candy that you can gift away to people!

Below are the recipes for: Chocolate spoons, Chocolate wreaths, and my personal favorite, the Sweet and savory toffee
Last year's DIY candy gifts can be found here.

Chocolate Spoons: A simple, but elegant gift you can give to your friends that they can use to sweeten up their morning coffee with or simply pop in their mouths for a pick me up. They're also lovely because you can decorate them any way you want.

What you need: Plastic spoons, bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate (8-16 oz), toppings (marshmallow, sprinkles, cocoa nibs, peppermint pieces, more chocolate, toffee, etc.) 

Prep a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or double boiler. Dip just the spoon part of the spoons into the chocolate getting a good coating. Place the spoon on the parchment paper. Top it with whatever toppings you like. Place them in the fridge or freezer to cool, and then pack them up!

Chocolate Wreaths: Round pretzels (I used Utz that I bought from Costco), 16 oz chocolate, toppings (cocoa nibs, sprinkles, peppermint pieces, toffee) 

The key here is to buy pretzels that you'd want to eat just by themselves. If you buy pretzels that don't taste good, or are stale, you'll get beautiful wreaths that taste not so good.

Prep a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Add pretzels to the melted chocolate until you feel you've "saturated" the chocolate. You don't need each pretzel to have a thick coating, just enough that it coats it. Then give the pretzels a good toss in the chocolate. I used a spatula to do them. Then one by one, using a fork, pull out the pretzels and lay them on the parchment paper. After a row is done, go back and add the topping to your "wreath." Tossing the pretzels and using the fork adds a texture to the chocolate that makes it look more "wreath" like.

Savory and sweet toffee: This is my favorite. In fact I'm munching on some now as I write this. It's exactly the same recipe that I used last year for the Pretzel Toffee but instead of pretzels I used saltines and I definitely prefer the saltines. Seriously, make this. It's so easy -- you don't need a candy thermometer, you don't need anything fancy, you just need the ingredients, a baking sheet, and some parchment paper.

What you need: 1 cup salted butter, 8oz chocolate, 1 cup light or dark brown sugar, salt, toppings (cocoa nibs, marshmallows, sprinkles, chia seeds)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9x13 baking sheet with parchment paper. If you don't have 9x13, use what you have and modify the recipe. Line the parchment paper with saltines. It doesn't have to be pretty, it just have to cover the bottom.

Then in a saucepan, heat up the butter and the sugar until it melts down and turns into a toffee. Should take about 2 minutes, watch it so it doesn't get too dark, you don't want it to burn. 

Then pour it carefully on top of the saltines, and spread it out. Don't worry if it doesn't cover everything, it'll spread in the oven. Put it in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Check to make sure it's not burning at 8 minutes. Pull it out, let it cool for a minute or two, then pour the 8oz of chocolate/chocolate chips on top.The heat from the toffee with the melt the chocolate. Spread it around in a thin layer.

 Then put your toppings on top! This year I went for a "messy" look, and mixed cocoa nibs, marshmallows, salt, chia seeds, and sprinkles on top. Pop it in the freezer for an hour to let it cool, then break it into pieces by hand and eat it or package it up to go! 

Global Sympathy

It's been hard to be on social media for the past few days. There is so much discussion about the attacks in Paris and its devastating effects, but only trickles of discussion about the attacks in Lebanon that happened just the day before. Then there are the few discussions shaming those who attempt to point out the difference, as though we have only enough compassion for one group of people. These conversations go on and on and on, and it pushed me away. In a time of devastation and horror, who wants to read that other human beings that they know closely or peripherally believe that more guns could have saved Parisian lives? That the wave of refugees was obviously to blame? The same refugees who were trying to escape this type of violence that was sadly all too common in their lives. And then there people who cheer on Rob Lowe and Scott Baio's nuggets which all but blame the refugees.

There were massive terrorist attacks only a few days apart, and the differential response and media coverage is shocking and sickening. Why? Is it that all Middle Eastern countries blend together? Or that violence in these non-Western countries is just expected? Is it that Brown lives matter less? Or that it just doesn't affect us, and when Western lives are shaken, well that just hits closer to home. I'm genuinely asking why. It has to be a mix of the above.

I've had people tell me that you can't be devastated by every sad thing that happens. I agree -- it would be just too overwhelming. But the juxtaposition of these two terrorist attacks shows the divergent response we have to terrorism depending on where and whom it hits. Why then, when terror strikes in the Western world, do we immediately deplore the people who were running from the same terror? Why can we not see past our tragedy-born hate and recognize that the actions of a few deranged people does not define 1.8 billion Muslims? Why is the response not compassion for the people of France, Lebanon, and the refugees running from a homeland saturated with terror?

I am genuinely sad. Sad that we live in a world where safety is a privilege, sad that so many people are being mindless murdered for politics, sad that there is a differential response in lives lost, and sad that we have come to accept this level of violence as the new normal. But I'm also scared. I'm scared for people that look like me, with my skin color, who wear clothing that marks their cultural or religious backgrounds. I'm scared for the refugees who lost or left their homes to escape the terrorism that permeated their country.

Let us have global sympathy for Paris, for Lebanon, and for the refugees.  

Fitness Post 2 - Hotel Leg Workout

I'm not going to lie, it's been hard to stay "in shape" going from one place to the next. It's not home, and doesn't have the luxury of free weights, mats...or even space. But to quote Tommy a baby's gotta do, what a baby's gotta do. So you make it work. It's pretty easy to go for a run outside, but for the past few weeks my plantar fasciitis has been acting up, so I've been resting it. Besides, most of my workouts are seasonal -- cardiovascular heavy in the spring and summer, and weight training heavy in the fall/winter. So if you don't have the space to do an insanity workout, or the equipment to do p90x, or either of those aren't your thing -- try to come up with a set of 10 exercises that you know will make you sweat, and sweat hard.

Below is my tried and true workout. Try it -- you'll deffffinitely feel it.

California for a second

I'm in California, for a second. For a hot second. Not husband, no dogs, no stocked kitchen (though I seemed to have stocked my the fridge where I'm staying pretty well), no bed that I'm used to with blue walls to wake up to. But a purpose -- see new things, eat new things, work in new places, learn new things. It will be interesting. I'm in California, for a second.

I've learned a few things

1. Never say never -- I discovered the wonders of a selfie stick that my husband decided to give me as a gag gift. That's right. I'm a convert. This realization has shaken me to my core -- who am I? What do I stand for now? Selfie sticks apparently.

My very first self-stick picture. It happened. I'm a selfie sticker.

2. Just because jay walking is totally normal and even expected in one part of the country, does not mean this holds true in another part of the country. People will stare at you, honk at you even.

The view from a mountain.

3. Similarly weather is not uniform. Before I left AZ, I thought all summers were dry and overbearingly hot. In MA, summers were overbearingly hot and muggy. The same was true of TX. In NorCal apparently summer takes place in what I mistakenly thought of as "fall." Getting off a plane in a pea coat, scarf, and two layers of shirts -- which was weather appropriate on the East Coast -- caused a bit of a...sweat issue on the West Coast.

That's the sun. That's the beach. That's the ocean.

4. Running can be fun. Running along the ocean is funner.

A pause in my morning run.

5. There is no inherent rudeness to Boston people / East Coast people in general. Brusqueness in action does not equate rudeness. There are rude people everywhere -- take a rude person from Manhattan and stick them in sunny CA, they'll probably be rude here. On a more positive note, there are kind and happy and helpful people everywhere. Thank you two ladies who helped me figure out the bus system. You were nice, and it made my day easier.

A beach! A puppy! 

6. Pumpkin cognac cheesecake may sound weird, but you should always get it. Because the weirder something sounds, the better it (usually) tastes. I was not wrong on this front. It is currently in my belly and I. regret. nothing.

Pumpkin cognac cheesecake. Go here. Get it. 

That's all for now. More updates forthcoming as I explore my world.

A cake! With a face! Vampire cake!

More cake!