Petite Maison- The Aftermeal

The meal after graduation was at Petite Maison, a fancy schmancy TINY little French place that John had discovered the week before. We all sat at the bar and talked the ears off the bartender. We tried steak tartar (look that one up!), foie gras, duck, pork belly, and trout. And an apple tartlet. Basically it was very cute and so delicious. And here's a glimpse. (p.s. They also have a thing called "staff meal" where you can show up and chill out and eat a pre-set meal from 10-midnight Thurs through Sat; I've since found out that this is kind of the underground restaurant workers/bartenders hangout time. And I'm totally going soon.)

And, then, I graduated...

My parents also came in for graduation (of course, right?) They only stayed for a couple days because I was just about to go to Idaho Falls for Christmas. John came as well (we kind of helped each other out a lot during school) and Brad came because I made him. No one really likes graduation ceremonies. And because I think he loves me or something. (Most of these pics are already on facebook.) And there are no pictures of my dad because he hates pictures of himself. But he was there. And I love him. And there were 7 women's health girls; that's all of us.
(So to explain, I got my Master's of Science in Nursing. I take my boards hopefully next month to become a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner. I don't have a new job yet. I'll let you know. And last week I started the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Which is mostly about becoming a leader in the nursing field and not about changing my job or anything. It also might kill me, so please start praying.)

Jessica Comes to Play!!

Jessica came later that week for my graduation. For anyone who's forgotten, Jessica was my roommate in Boise who I went to visit in May and whose wedding ceremony I performed.
We've been planning for her to come down forever, and finally she got to.
She unfortunately also had to sit through a poster session as soon as she got off the plane, but I tried to make it up to her :-)
So we shopped and ate fancy places. Because that is my limited view of what there is to do in Phoenix. We ate Sprinkles cupcakes. We shopped at Crate & Barrel. We ate fancy healthy breakfasts at d'lish. We stood in fake snow that made us cough and worried us a little bit.
And basically, we had a blast.
And didn't take enough pictures. I want my ELPH back.

The Craziest 5K ever.

On December 12th, I ran a 5K with a group called Girls on the Run. As part of the graduate nurse's organization, we are supposed to do a service project, so I got together with this group and we planned some things. The goal of Girls on the Run is to promote self-esteem in girls ages 8-13 by helping them run a 5K. They pair each girl with a "running buddy" to help her get through the race. So our nurses organization signed up to be running buddies. Terrified that I might hold my little running buddy up, I ran like crazy that week (even through the burning raw skin from my chemical peel). Turns out I needn't have worried. This is my running buddy, who refused to run and complained the whole way. We did pretend to run in front of her parents for a minute.

It took us about 2 1/2 hours to walk 3.1 miles. Her name is Destiny; her little brother Dallas joined us for the last half of the race. I think you can tell which picture is from before we started and which one is from the finish line. This is maybe what I get for setting up a service project on a Sunday?! (Click on this; her little brother is so cute and she is so upset....)

I love the car wash...

So I have a million things I could post about, so this one will be small. But Scottsdale has a new car wash. It's $6. It's just like Boise's. It gets my car soooo clean. It has free vacuums with small attachments that get in all the cracks and I love it. I love it. And it's about 1 mile from my house. Hallelujah!

Its all fun and games until somebody gets prediabetes

It's time again for my workplace's annual health screening. In the last 2 years, my cholesterol has dropped exactly 50 points. My HDL is up. My triglycerides could not be lower. And my hemoglobin A1C came back at 5.7. Excuse me? What?
Now, the HgBA1C is kind of a new test, so let me explain. LESS than 5.7 means you are just fine. 5.7-6.4 means you are "prediabetic". Greater than 6.4 is diabetic. And >8 is an out-of-control diabetic.
It's an average of how much glucose your red blood cells have been bathing in for the last three months. They tend to hang on to it.
I used to think this test was the bomb. It wasn't supposed to come back like this.
Now, I happen to know my fasting blood sugar is usually 82. I also know that a pre-diabetic fasting blood sugar is 100-125.
I also know that, based on my "elf" tendencies discussed earlier this year, I prefer sugar to food. Generally always. Like the tray of rice krispie treats with chocolate chips in them I put away for breakfast and lunch last week.
Even an awesome pancreas can't hide the fact that sometimes I treat my red blood cells to a sugar bath at least a couple times a month.
Today I ate a piece of peanut butter and jelly toast with pomegranate seeds instead of jelly.
And a whole wheat gyro with a side salad of tabouuleh.
And did not eat any "yogurtland"
And I'm about to go enjoy some salmon and a nice caprese salad.
Ahhh....life as a "no I am not prediabetic but I'll keep telling myself this if it keeps me out of a sugar coma."
Oh, and I ran 2 miles.
p.s. If my insurance reads this blog post, I'm gonna be so pissed....

Snack Pack Anyone?

Last Friday night I went on a date with a guy from my ward. It was my first formal "first date" in quite awhile, but it was awesome, and we totally had a great time.
First off, we went to sushi at a place that serves everything on a conveyor belt, so if it looks good, you grab it. They charge you by what color of plate it's on at the end. I felt like I ate so much, but it was totally delicious and very fun. (That stack of plates, by the way, is not mine. They belong to the random dude who got his arm in the picture. I ate a lot. Not quite THAT much.)
The sushi was great, but I grabbed "Today's Special" which was conchi. I have since googled this and determined that it must have been meat from a conch shell. I will tell you this: it was the worst thing I have ever ever eaten as far as I can remember. I almost could not swallow it. Consider this your warning- do not eat this stuff!!
But my favorite part of the restaurant was absolutely this:

Just in case you need a snack pack to go with your sushi, it's there for your enjoyment. I laughed every time it came around. And then I ate some cream puffs.

Part of That World....

I think all of you know me enough by now to know that I do not have a particularly remarkable singing voice. That may be an understatement.
I once was told by a boy that I had a nice singing voice. Candice said he was lying because he liked me.
Emily Inglet once asked in awe how I could be so dang good at singing Alice in Chains when I was so bad at singing hymns in church.
Vanie, however, did, say I was an awesome karaoke-er.
And RockBand totally thinks I can sing.
Did I mention taking a month of voice lessons is on my list of 100 things to do in 1001 days? I thought I didn't have time. I thought I couldn't find a teacher.
This is my teacher:

Her name is Emily Williams. She teaches at the Mesa Arts Center and you get 7 private lessons for about $100. So I signed up. And on Saturdays at 1:00, I can be heard singing louder and better than I ever have before. In a room with only 2 people and a piano.
And now I know how to warm up my voice and I sing "Part of Your World" and "Angels We Have Heard on High," and it is much much better than before.
I won't be singing any solos in church. And I'm not trying to compete with my sister's awe-inspiring incredible voice.
But at least I have a glimpse into that crazy music world. And it's been really fun :-)

Thanksgiving at Home

So Thanksgiving at my home involved was on the Saturday night BEFORE Thanksgiving and only included the people who mean the most to me:
Vanie
Taylor, new 18 year old roommate
Kaitlyn, new 21 year old roommate
Xavier, 21-year old roommate's fiancee

John
and of course, my beloved brother Brad. I was there, too.
This year I had a fabulous idea. SELF magazine had published these 6 healthy and fabulous side dishes. So everyone was assigned two recipes while I made Rachel Ray Turkey Cutlets Parmagiano, the only turkey I still have ever made. Kaitlyn opted to make her own mashed potato recipe. Taylor made chocolate cream pie. EXCEPT that....this was Taylor's first time cooking it away from home. The instructions read, "cream together sugar and butter until sugar is dissolved." Taylor thought to herself, "Well the only way to get sugar to dissolve properly is to boil it." Which means, we drank the chocolate cream pie because, even after 9 hours in the fridge and 1 hour in the freezer, boiled sugar does not set. It was still delicious (just like her mom's was the week after!).

Brad did an awesome job on green beans with blackened sage and hazelnuts. AND pomegranate pear stuffing.
John rocked Butternut squash with cherries and apples (even though it took at least twice as long to cook as the recipe said it was supposed to....)
Vanie made awesome sweet potato biscuits and cherry cranberry sauce (the biscuits weren't whole wheat, but whole wheat biscuit mix does not exist in this state!)



Here's everyone with their masterpieces. I'm so grateful for good friends who humor me in this craziness!


(Real Thanksgiving was spent at our former bishop's house and was also delicious and wonderful and perfect. But I didn't take pictures.)


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Trust

Sometimes I think I just might trust people too much. Take today for example. I trusted my roommate Vanie that it would be just fine to get chemical peel done before I went to work tonight. Sure. She said. It will be fine. I'm going to work like this tonight. And I'll be peeling for 5 days. And I can't touch it or it will lead to hyperpigmentation. Awesome.

The things we do for youth....

I PLAYED FOOTBALL!!!

So in the midst of everything, I went on a bike ride. My friend Meagan was at my house getting ready for Powder Puff football practice (she's also my roommate's sister). I mentioned to her that I had wanted to play, but I really couldn't make practice and life was so crazy, blah, blah, blah.
Turns out practice was right then.
Turns out I had the night off.
Turns out one girl had dropped out.
Turns out I really like playing defensive line.

I mean, how often do we girls get to ram into each other and let out our buried aggression? Huh? Never, right?

Here's some pics for your enjoyment:

(p.s. It was a mid-singles 25-35 year old event, hence, the cougars versus the gold-diggers. I didn't have any idea how uncomfortable I would feel wearing something that looked like it was from BYU. I felt like a traitor to every school I've ever gone to.)

Fashionable

Our friend Polly has taken to posting what she wears everyday. That's how fashionable she truly is. About once a month I'm really pleased with my outfit enough to do such a thing. Here's my two.


The sweater and weird green shirt are from Target. The shirt is a maternity shirt that was on clearance for $3.
The white shirt and sweet necklace are from H&M, which store I totally hated the first time I went (it's generally made for girls littler than me). Vanie and I decided that basically this necklace makes everything go from boring to cool in 3 seconds flat. It's awesome :-)
(As a side note, all my boots circa 2004 are completely worn out and this is the absolute worst year ever to find good high-heeled boots. They are either all scrunchy or over-the-knee, leaving me 3 inches of bootless thigh.....terrible)

And John is 28.

Then John turned 28 two weeks later. (Of course, Candice turned 29 3 days earlier, but that was up in Idaho, and I wasn't part of that :-( ).
We wanted to make John's party totally awesome, but, I, of course, am not so good with ideas.
Luckily, he is.
We all went bowling at Lucky Strike, a club/bowling alley that is basically awesome. They have a couple in LA and it's basically sweet ambience, delicious food, and a little bowling on the side. It's perfect JVizz birthday. And we were so caught up making sure everyone got there and could figure out where it was (it's brand new here in Phoenix, and, well, everyone was late....), that I completely forgot to take pictures. So here's the link.
http://www.bowlluckystrike.com/about/photos/
You can just imagine us all there :-)

Then off to the Vig, basically another just really delicious restaurant where I previously had nachos bigger than my head. (And who make chicken sandwiches seem like masterpieces....)
And thanks to Caitlin, who took the only picture of the night.

Love you, John! Happy Birthday!

Brad is what....26?

So Brad turned 26 on October 10th. It's a little beyond me that my little brother could be 26. He seems to be creeping up on me rapidly in age (which really only means that I'm rapidly creeping older and older.....).
We went to Geisha-a-go-go; a sushi/karaoke place. We rented out a room that they said was good for 10. For a fancy-schmancy Scottsdale place, it was more than a little creepy and a little claustrophobic.

Yep. That's the whole room (plus a TV on the other side). But the sushi was great, and we did have a blast singing group karaoke to classics such as:
"Yesterday" by the Carpenters
"Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond
"You Oughta Know" Alanis
and a bunch of others I should remember.
Honestly, it was pretty awesome. Even if our waitress looked somewhat terrified everytime she walked in. And even if she was a little confused how or why 10 people wouldn't imbibe the alcohol at a birthday party.....
Happy Birthday Brado!
p.s. can you find the matching cardigans in the picture? yep, that wasn't planned.

Sperms & Eggs

I'm a little overwhelmed by the thought that I have 2 months to catch up blogging with. But, of course, I'm quite obviously overwhelmed with everything if I've neglected my blog for 57 days. (I've tried to keep up with y'all's!) Graduation is in T minus 11 days and it seems like more and more stuff keeps cropping up that has to be done before I graduate. A poster that I think I've edited 12 times is the first thing that comes to mind and might be driving me crazy. Or the final that I almost forgot and had to do after night shift and before date on Friday. I don't remember graduation being quite so complicated the first 2 times around...(or 3, I guess....).

Anyways, there have been some fun things, like....
I actually got to see these eggs removed from a woman. Then "washed" off. Then fertilized, needle-style, by these sperm. We got to choose the best sperm for the job and then hope for the best.
I got to see one lady cry (for a million reasons, I'm sure), as she held her husband's hand as 3 little embryos were placed inside her for safe-keeping.
And that was all in one day.
The rest of the semester consisted of switching back and forth between nights for work at the beginning of the week and days for clinicals at the end of the week. My other clinicals were somewhat more routine and consisted of GBS swabs, fetal heart tones, and ultrasounds, but the point being, my hours are DONE!! I still have to take boards in a couple months, I still have to find a job (hopefully more on the GYN side than the OB side; I can't deliver babies, so it's a little anti-climactic to do pre-natal care; I'd rather replace your hormones and fix your menstrual cycle and control your diabetes.....) but we'll see where the next few months lead. I am going to continue on with my "Doctor of Nursing Practice," but that degree won't really change anything as far as career goes. 4 more semesters, here we come (but holy cow I am ready for this break!)

To Live and Die in LA....

Ok, this is just about "livin' in LA," but "To Live in LA" is not a song. And "To Live and Die in LA" is. So there. Anyways.
Last week John and me and his roommate Quinn took a little roadtrip to LA. The thing is, for all John's LA love and all the things he's talked about showing me there, in the last two years, we've never gotten to go together. Until this weekend.
Oh, did I mention MUSE was in town?
So, of course, we were there.
Originally, we were going to head out at about 4, but Quinn had some Elder's Quorum situation stuff to do, so we left at 9. P.M. And pulled up to John's parents house at 4 AM. The trip was fun, actually. First, we stopped at QT. QT to me has historically been just a gas station, but many people love this place. It is, actually, the Ritz Carlton of gas stations. Our snack list included:
A Ham & Cheese Sandwich
A cup of delicious purple grapes
A couple yummy cookies
A 52oz. vanilla diet coke (I think; it was Quinn's. The important part being that you can flavor any soda you want with any flavor you want.)
Trail Mix
AND
A peanut butter filled chocolate frosted doughnut. Yup. That's right. A peanut butter doughnut. Kinda weird, but good.
We all talked the whole way there, and it was nice to have two people who were so nice to talk to for that long.
His dad got up and talked to us for like an hour, which was nuts. Then John & Quinn slept in the living room and I slept in John's sister's room.
We slept until 9:30 when his parents woke us all up for breakfast. John's dad was super-excited to make me bacon that was about 1000 times better than the bacon I made for him in May. We also had delicious pancakes and fruit salad and it was so sweet of them and so much fun.

Then we went to the Getty. The Getty is basically the prettiest museum I've ever seen and it's HUGE. We spent 4 hours there, where I got in a little trouble for touching a dresser that may have been 360 years old. I loved loved loved the fountains all around and the garden and the photo exhibit. It was just all really perfect. And, if you're wondering, it's also totally free. So it felt like a huge beautiful service project to the world, and I loved it.

Then, off to Wahoo Tacos. Where we got 5 fish tacos, an energy drink, and chips and salsa for $10 bucks. And they were delicious. And I was too hungry to remember to take pictures. Oh well.

Next, Diddy Reese. Diddy Reese is like the cookie king of LA. They sell 6 cookies for $2 and 12 cookies for $3.75 and they taste exactly perfectly homemade. And even though the line is like a million miles long, it only takes 15 minutes, because they can make an ice cream sandwich in about 5 seconds. Oh, those ice cream cookie sandwiches? $1.50. mmmm.....so yum. (This is also in the neighborhood of LA where I stayed a couple years ago. It's beautiful.) Then we drove through some beautiful canyons and houses and stopped on the beach for 10 minutes just to breathe in the ocean (yes, this was my idea).

And then it was time for Muse. We went home, changed, and met up with Heather, a girl from LA who also served in John's mission. And then we rode the LA subway. Didn't know LA had a subway? Neither did I. But now I've ridden both LA's and New York's, which is just sweet. This is us trying to capture the moment: It's clean, and nice, and well, it's a subway.
Muse was sweet. Passion Pit I felt like I couldn't really make out the words to, but maybe that's because I don't know any of them. (I do like them on CD, but that's all I know....)
Isn't Muse's (Matt Bellamy) suit the best?
And to round out the day, we went to Pink's. Even at 12:30, the line was an hour. We were completely exhausted, but I might have been hearing about this for 2 years, and I needed some protein. So we happily stood in line and enjoyed these crazy hot dogs:
We ate them. We went to sleep. We went to church the next day. We took three hour naps. And then we drove home.
Ahhh....LA. Love you.

CAMPING!!

I know that camping is not a novelty for plenty of you, but, unfortunately, it is for me. I have some great memories of camping as a child, mostly in Florida playing horseshoes with my dad (except the horseshoes were plastic flowers; I would love to have those again). My happy memories also involve hiking with my high school friends, roasting apples over the campfire, eating blueberry pop-tarts for breakfast, and, of course, listening to Green Day with the Ashcrafts in Lake Texana over Thanksgiving. Not to mention Suzette and I spraying each other down with bug spray at Camp Karankawa.
The only time I've camped in Arizona was at Lake patagonia, which was beautiful and very fun, but was more than two years ago.
So when our ward announced its ward campout, I cleared my schedule. Time to play!!! (I really, really needed to get outside.)
The night before, I went shopping for the essentials. Which included a tent. Because at some point even if a girl doesn't camp all that much, she needs a tent. In this case, she bought a tent for her future family. Which looks like this:

I found this tent earlier online and fell in love with it. And then I went to four different stores until I found it on sale at Sports Authority for $60 off 15 minutes before they closed. Whoo-hoo!!! Also included as camping essentials were: a first aid kit, a camping chair, a flashlight, a hammock, and marshmallow roasting sticks. Perfect, right?
Back to the tent, which received several nicknames during the campout. "Tent house" "Taj Mahal" "Best of Show" and
"The Palace" were my favorites. Mostly, it was just really fun. And it was easy to set up, which made all us girls very cool. And then we helped the guys set up theirs.
I went with 3 girls, 2 of whom are new in my ward. One, Annette, is 30 also. She's the one with short brown hair. And we talked nonstop for 3 1/2 hours all the way there. I've learned fairly recently something about 30-year old single girls. We have a lot of good stories. And we talk a LOT. (There's another girl in my ward that I had the same experience with.) Anyways, Annette is fabulous and I totally love her. Megan (the other blonde) is 29 and also totally cool. She just got back from her mission in Chile and is a nurse. She also always talks like she might just be a little bit high, which might just make me like her even more. And the girl with long brown hair is JoAnn. She moved here from Texas and is Megan's friend and is 33, but likes to say she's 25.
And she is very fun, too.

The thing that you may have noticed is different about this post than other ones is that it involves friends of mine that are GIRLS. I know this is a novelty, but it's something I'm really trying to cultivate. You know, girl friends who don't only live 600+ miles away. And this was such a fun way to get to know each other.
So anyways, we drove a million miles to our campsite, which was beautiful but had only 1 toilet for 100 people and magically did not break. We ate smores and talked and looked at stars with the iphone app that tells you exactly what you're looking at. In the morning, I (of course) slept through breakfast and got up feeling fabulous. Annette, me, and JoAnn went on a hike to a spring that we found out didn't exist, but which was good for working off the Pop-Tarts anyways. This is what Megan did while we hiked:
I also broke out my hammock afterwards and ate Wheat Thins and Easy Cheese like I used to do at girls' camp. It was awesome. This is the view from the hammock:

And then, we packed up and went home. And the tent even fit back in the bag. Which I have to admit, I was a little nervous about.
So the trip...
It was quick. It was fast. It was beautiful. It was perfect. Ahh...

The Importance of Watching TV

I need to watch more TV. I've come to this conclusion only recently, but I'm quite certain it's true. The fact that I've been paying for cable since July and have yet to watch a complete show is starting to get to me. Despite all the negative effects of watching too much TV, I'm quite convinced there are some excellent benefits of watching just enough. For example, it makes you happy. How I Met Your Mother, the Office, and, of course, What Not to Wear. It helps you bond with people. And it makes you smile.

Second, it makes you feel normal. Kind of like laundry. The sound of the washing machine and the sound of the TV is kind of soothing; Being in a house with the TV on makes you feel like you're in a normal-people house. And you know what's going on in the world.

Third, it makes homework less monotonous. Working at night + doing online school = a lot of quiet time & a lot of time in front of the computer. Computers don't talk back unless you're on youtube. The TV does. Some people listen to music while they do their homework. I watch mindless TV. It makes me feel like I'm socializing during the hours I'm spending in front of the computer researching vestibulitis.

It is, of course, how I got through college round 1. And I just realized it's time to watch TV.