I promise i am studying

I promise i am studying....kinda....sorta.
I mean, there is something not so fun about sitting in the library (or at home like i am doing today), doing questions and reading for 4-6 hours a day.  There has GOT to be some relief every once in a while.

So i am trying to refrain from surfing the internet too much while studying......I am trying to be focused when studying and enjoying my time off when i have it.  But things like facebook, gmail, pinterest, and general celeb gossip are constantly whispering in my ear for me to play with them instead of my questions.  And for the guys who read my blog, my obsessions can be likened to football, beer, playboy, and ESPN.  ha.

Ok- i am currently obsessing over a few things.

1st off- these cute floral jeans by 7 For All Mankind
Super cute, amazing and i would wear them every day- even under my scrubs.
But $200....i gotta pass.  I owe too much money to too many people!
And ps- how unhappy does this model look in the pic?  Smile for goodness sakes!  You have on fabulous jeans!

And i know i posted about this necklace before but i STILL want it.  For a mere $300 dollars you can have this necklace, just like Lauren Conrad.
Again- expensive taste and can't buy it.
My mom says i have champagne taste on a beer budget.  BUT I DON"T LIKE BEER!  :(

And ahhh....Annie Griffin clothes.
My favorite store in Manning Jessica's Boutique turned me on to this fabulous designer.
By the way, if you are ever driving down 95 and stop in Manning (for what, i don't know but whatever)- go to Jessica's.  Totally worth it!  OR you could hop on the internet and check out her facebook page and shop that way too (which is what i do).  Ahhh...what would i ever do without facebook shopping.

 

I can only afford them when they are on sale- but check out the stripped dress (2nd from the R)....it is to die for!  And i already have a hat like that and shoes like that, so the dress would just complete the outfit.
Lol.



And last but not least, this is what i dreamed about last night.
Yes, i dreamed about a banana pudding cupcake.   Yumm-o
Here is the recipe.

I am pretty sure my dream had something to do with the fact that tay made some of these last night (although they don't look as pretty- sorry tay).  But it also might have been due to the fact that i went to bed without dinner.......thank you very much for feeding me wine and no food (ok, i really can't blame anyone but myself but i am going to try!!).
Back to my dream.....in it i kept on trying to make these cupcakes but every time i would go to open a box of vanilla wafers, a big hole had been ripped into the box and they were all gone.  Come to find out my brother had been eating them in his sleep (random) and eating the box as well (which is why there was a big hole in the side).  Yeah, random dream.

Ok- well, i my break is over.  Back to studying.  Thank goodness it is cloudy outside or i wouldn't get anything done bc i would be tanning by my beautiful pool!
:)

Happy tuesday!

Thursday things (published on friday after i woke up)

1. So my mom's birthday was on May 28th and it was the big 6-0!
And the family decided to throw her a little surprise party for the big day.

Here is the beautiful cake table that my SIL set up!  :)

Here is my mom getting surprised!

Taylor, Ava, and Neannie

Marie, Taylor, Ava, and Papaul

Erika and Ava

Ava and my mom (the birthday girl!)

And of course i had to take pics of the food- because it looked amazing!
Laura Alberts did the catering for the party (yea that i didn't have to cook) and the food and service and price was fantastic!
This is a sashimi tuna salad

Caprese salad

Here is the delish Strawberry and Cream cake from Sugar bakeshop.
A-mazing!

Oh- and we also had pork tenderloin with raspberry chipotlet sauce and a mango chutney.
And we also had beef tenderloin with a horseradish sauce and spicy mustard.

Another video (have i told you lately that i love my iphone??)

2. So i am still baking.
These are the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes that i made for my last night of nightfloat in the MICU.
Here is the recipe.
Another fantastic recipe....from Pinterest.  Thank you pinterest for adding inches to my waist line.  :)

3. Which brings me to #3.  I am done with MICU.  Which is sad and fantastic at the same time.  But i still have another year of fellowship left so don't get all excited for me.
What happened was that with increasing the # of fellows from 4 to 5 a year, we now have 15 fellows!  It is great because more fellows means more people to help out.  It also means that one of the upcoming 3rd year fellows would not get the chance to do MICU because there are too many of us and not enough months.  All 5 of us upcoming 3rd year fellows love the MICU (who doesn't love critical care) but considering that MICU month means 2 weeks of 12-14 hour days and 2 weeks of night float, i opted out of the month.  I love it, i really do love the ICU, but it is hard to leave Taylor by herself at night while i am at work.  And while she is practically an adult (more adult than me), i always worry that something will happen when i am gone. So with me not doing the MICU, i am now worry free.
BUT- oh my goodness i am going to miss it.  I love the MICU.  I love the procedures.  I love intensity.  I love the patient population.  I love the nurses/techs/pharmDs/RTs- everyone that makes the MICU run smoothly- I love you all.  And i am going to miss you so much.  Since my 4th year of med school, and residency, and fellowship, i have spent 8 months working in the MICU and i have loved every minute of it.  Even the difficult patients.  Even the sad cases.  Even the patients we couldn't save.  I learned so much and hate that i won't be there next year.
Ok....i am getting sad.  Moving on to #4

4. How cute/sweet/adorable is my niece.  I stole this pic from my sister so i have to say that i wasn't there and didn't witness the cuteness, but i wanted to share with everyone because seriously- super cute!
:)

5. Today (Friday, June 1st) Taylor finished 9th grade.  OMG.
There are no words to express how astonished i am that the little baby i had almost 16 years ago has only 3 more years of high school.  Time flies!
In honor of her finishing (but we don't have grades yet), we went out to eat at a restaurant of her choice.
And where did she pick?

Yes, Basil.  An amazing Thai restaurant downtown.

We both got dressed up, which you know i love to do.  Taylor, not so much.  She complained the whole night because she was wearing a dress.  Hehe.

Basil is famous for two things- Pad Thai and the Crispy Duck.  And what did we both get?  The Pad Thai (because she didn't want to share!!!)

Dinner was delish.
Taylor leaves for Europe in 11 days (going there with school for 10 days to London, Paris, and Madrid- lucky girl).  Then she visits her dad for a month.  I'm gonna miss the girl.
:)

Call Me Maybe obsession

I am completely obsessed with the song Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen.
Soooo obsessed that while i should be sleeping i am googling her video and playing it over and over and over and over again!

Carly Rae Jepsen is a Canadian singer-songwriter and became famous in 2007, when she placed third in the 5th season of Canadian Idol.  Call Me Maybe is her new hit song, which was released late last year but made famous by another Canadian singer when he made his own video to the song (gotta love the Biebs)


You know the song.  You can't turn on the radio without hearing it. It's the most played song on your iTunes, maybe, probably, fine, it is, so what? With her hit single  climbing on the charts — it currently holds the No. 2 spot on Billboard Top 100 list this week — Jepsen's hit has officially swept the country.

Go here to watch the video (it isn't on youtube).

And you know what that means when it is on ALL the time: It's swept YouTube as well. Even the celebrity community has picked up on the poppy song — from Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, to Katy Perry, to the E! news crew....and the not so celebrity community of the Harvard Baseball team, and the Duke and UNC women's lacrosse teams.  Everyone is getting on the "Call Me Maybe" bandwagon. Which means so are you. Maybe. Probably. 

Scroll below to see the best covers surrounding the addicting hit!

 Here is the one with Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ashley Tisdale

 Here is Katy Perry and her friends singing.  :)

Here is the E! Fashion Police video.  I think i love this one the most!  <3

Here is the Duke Women's Lacrosse team's video. :) 
UNC made a video too but i am not going to show it because....welll....UNC sucks.
And can i just say "go to hell carolina, go to hell!"

So back to my obsession.
Hmmm.... i know this is totally dorky but i really really want to make a video.
Seriously.
No, really seriously.
Who is with me?????

Thursday things

So, i am still on night float- still working a lot, sleeping a little, and eating when i can.

Oh yeah, and i do some baking-

Here are some pink champagne cupcakes i made in honor of one of my residents, Tina, who found out she is having a girl!  :)

They are delish- and here is the recipe

I will say one thing- being on nights and staying up all night makes you slightly delusional after a while.  My residents and i have had some really entertaining conversations- and they really remind me of 20 questions.  We have touched on if we would ever use psychics/horoscopes, do we believe in ghosts,  favorite movies/food/presents/etc, and tons more (including some very risque topics....come on, it is me.  do you expect less?).  Some of the conversations have been so fun that even though nothing is going on, i have been sitting at work chatting.  What is up with that?
One of my residents and i are VERY SIMILAR- come to find out we are both Capricorns.

I don't ever read horoscopes but this is so true it is scary!

So to summarize- a Capricorn, the tenth sign of the zodiac, is all about hard work (yep). Those born under this sign are more than happy to put in a full day at the office, realizing that it will likely take a lot of those days to get to the top (again- yep). That's no problem, since Capricorns are both ambitious and determined: they will get there.Capricorns are practical as well, taking things one step at a time and being as realistic and pragmatic as possible. The Capricorn-born are extremely dedicated to their goals, almost to the point of stubbornness (stubborn...hahaha!).

PS- did you like how the website pic has a eHarmony link on the bottom?  Taylor is promising me that she will be signing me up for eHarmony or Match.com next year if i haven't dated anyone by then.

Don't you love how grown up my child is?

And of course, no blog is complete without a picture of my babies.

They are saying good morning!

:)

Everyone have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.  Please remember why we celebrate the weekend in the first place!  And just a fun fact that i will share with you that i mentioned in my Duke Senior Thesis: Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. (Southern ladies organizations and southern schoolchildren had decorated Confederate graves in Richmond and other cities during the Civil War, but each region had its own date)

Hackers beware!

Well, sometime between 3 am (when i fell asleep) and 5:30 am (when my stomach woke me up bc i was STARVING), someone tried to hack into my Gmail account.
I tried to check my email from my phone when i woke up but it said that my password was incorrect.  I freaked out a bit because of all of the info on my Gmail acct and  went down to my laptop computer to see what was going on.
When i signed on to my acct i was asked to immediately to change my email.
Then i read this disturbing email:

Someone recently tried to sign in to your Google Account, http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?&v=b&cs=wh&to=laralambert79@gmail.com. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:
May 19, 2012 7:49am GMT
IP Address: 188.245.237.204
Location: Iran


Ok but seriously?  How did someone in Iran get ahold of my email and what would they want with my email account?  Lucky for me i have a tip top secret password!  :)
But for real?  Stupid hacker- get a real job!


On a lighter note, have you ever gone to work at the wrong time?  Well, i hadn't until today when i SWORE i had to work at 10 am today....but i was wrong!  My poor brain is so confused with this days/nights thing!

And on another note, wouldn't you consider it nice to be mentioned in my blog?  Yeah, i thought so too!
:)

Oh- and i was able to go out to dinner last night at Butcher and Bee for the Vietnamese Pho Pop-up dinner.  Big props to Janice and her family for outstanding food!  Taylor can't wait to baby-sit for y'all this summer and get paid in spring rolls!

YUM!!

Good morning. Or good night. I don't know...

It is 12:30 pm and i just woke up after sleeping for only 5 hours.  That means that i went to bed at 7:30 am.....which means i have been up all night....so if you are following along, that means i am on NIGHT FLOAT!  I am a vampire (but don't sparkle) and eat breakfast when i wake up in the middle of the day and then snack the rest of the day because i can't figure out a real eating schedule.

Being on night float also means i have not been cooking.  And i have not been taking pictures of the puppies, my pool, any food i cook, etc.  So hmmm....what to blog about.

Grey's anatomy.  In all honesty, i couldn't wait for Grey's Anatomy finale last night.  It was the season finale and whoo hooo- i couldn't wait!  The finale from season 6 when the gunman was in the hospital was one of the most powerful episodes ever and it was promised that last nights episode was going to similar.
Warning- there are spoilers here so if you haven't seen the episode yet, stop reading. You can also watch the first 6 minutes here. 
Or the entire episode at www.abc.com
The anticipation of a death is an unsettling experience -- even if that death is of a character on television. We viewers went into last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, titled “Flight,” much like the family member of a cancer patient goes into the hospital for the last time: with complete and utter dread, knowing the end is near.  And a plane crash at the end of last weeks episode promised that the victim would be one of the six doctors on the flight: Meredith, Derek, Cristina, Mark, Arizona, or Lexie.  It was only about 20 minutes into the episode, then, it became clear the victim was Lexie, who had been crushed under part of the plane that crashed in the woods.  It was an intense death. I mean, how awful was it to watch one of Grey’s longest-running characters pass away so quickly -- and rather unceremoniously?  She told Mark that she loved him and he promised her that she wasn't going to die today and moments later, she took her last breath.
The rest of the episode, all 40 minutes of it, was less than entertaining- the remaining crash victims struggled to stay alive and from time to time, the show would cut to the rest of the physicians blissfully going on with life at Seattle Grace. Even Callie laying in lingerie waiting for her wife, Arizona.
Overall, i didn't love the episode.  It might have been due to the fact that i was sitting at work in the ICU break room watching the show (damn you night float).  It might have also been due to the fact that i kept on being distracted by my resident and from time to time the nurses who would come in to ask us questions.  Nevertheless, we have three months to dwell on the finale, mourn the loss of Lexie, and figure out what the hell is going to happen.

In other non-tv related news, i am super excited about the Vietnamese Pop-Up dinner at Butcher and Bee tonight.  Love love love the pho and spring rolls.  I even dreamed about them last night!!
Come check it out.  Taylor and i will be there devouring the spring rolls around 6:30.  And byob. :)
http://www.facebook.com/butcherandbee.charleston

Well, this blog is completely random (sorry) and rather frustrating since i don't feel like i have much to talk about.  Hope y'all have a fabulous weekend!  Night float starts up again on Sunday night- i have two days to clean my house!!

Tuesday Things

Happy Tuesday everyone.  Remember me?  Yes, i am alive.....but barely!  The ICU is fun but wow is it exhausting.

A few things:

1) Remember this oyster shell mirror that i vowed to make?

 Well....it is done....and looks like this!

 And this....

By the way, the plan was to have it set up above the fireplace but IT IS TOO BIG.  I mean, it is huge!  The mirror itself (actually 4 mirrors put together) is 24' x 24'.  Add another 8-12 inches of shells and it is about 34 inches by 34 inches.  It didn't seem THAT big when i was making it....yes i know it took me forever to make, henceforth, probably a very large mirror.....but you would laugh if you saw me and tay attempt to hang it over the fireplace.  EPIC FAIL!  So its resting place is on top of the small bar in our tv room.
I LOVE IT!


2) This is Taylor's 3 favorite things to eat- all in one meal.....sorry, the pic isn't great and it really looks like piles of mush on a plastic plate (hehe) but seriously.....each one is A-mazing!
Copy the recipes and try them....NOW!
And if you have to make just one thing- make two- the chicken and the tots.  You won't be sorry!

Melt in your mouth chicken (but i use greek yogurt instead of mayo)
Truffled tater tots
Polenta with mushrooms

And of course Taylor likes to get creative with her food.
:)

Well, that is it for me. 
TWO THINGS on my tuesday things- wow.......I am boring! 
Actually i am just busy.  My day goes like this- wake up, eat, drive to work, work, drive home, drink a sweet tea vodka, eat, drink a glass of wine, go to sleep.  Repeat.
Hopefully something more interesting will happen soon!

But for now, have a wonderful week!