Driving in the City!

I did it! I had never driven in Manhattan. Until Yesterday. TEE HEE!!! :)

I never had the need to drive in Manhattan, I always took the train. And the few times I was in a car my parents or Rob drove. There were always other people willing to drive so I never had to. And I was totally fine with that. I dislike extremely aggressive driving, especially on a street situation. I'm used to crazies on the highway but not so much in the streets. And cabbies always kind of scared me a bit. As a passenger, pedestrian and fellow driver. I've always felt too nervous and intimidated to actively decide to drive in the midst of all that.

Rob and I went to see a friend yesterday, and Rob's car was out of commision. So we took mine. Rob offered to drive but I figured I had to do it sometime. And the longer I put it off the more intimidated I would get about it. So I did it. Gritted my teeth and got in the car and I did it. I think I did pretty ok. The cabbies did freak me out a bit, especially on Broadway. But I handled the rest pretty well. And I survived. I don't think it will ever be my favorite place in the world to drive but at least the initial intimidation is over. Hopefully I'll be a little more comfortable next time. WHEW!!!

And so that's that. I've driven in the big baaaaad city. I can do it. But I still prefer the train!

Well, It's Official!

I am now a resident of the state of Connecticut. :( and yet :) No more NY resident. :( It's silly, but hard. I'm a New Yorker. I don't want to admit that I live in the suburbs. And in another state too! Buuuuuut I needed to switch over my license and registration and all that.

Part of the long wait was that it took me forever and a half to get the title from my Dad. The car was oficially in his name/ownership. When we finally did that, I was able to go to the DMV. Unfortunately, I needed about 2 billion pieces of identification, Passport, NY drivers license, expired license, utility bill..... PLUS, I couldn't get a new registration without a CT drivers license, which I didn't have. AND I couldn't get the registration without the emissions inspection, but for the emissions inspection I needed a CT registration. And I couldn't get insurance without a registration but I couldn't get a registration without insurance. It was all confusing on the website. So I tried about 6 times to call, and when I finally got through I was able to straighten it all out. I COULD get the inspection with the NY registration. Then I had to convince the service station people of that. And I COULD get insurance but I needed to fanagle things a bit and then I had to make sure I went to the NY DMV after the CT DMV to return my NY plates and prove my CT registration on the insurance. It was all confusing. But I managed it in the end. A hassle, but finished.

I even managed to get it all done in the same day. I spent an expected three hours getting my drivers license, but only 20 minutes getting my registration. Go figure. And once I found the DMV in White Plains I was only there for a half hour or so. The in between of switching my plates was the worst part.

The NY plates were bolted on tight and rusted. I managed to get the front plate off fairly easily. The back plate was a bit harder. I couldn't manage to do it, and the bolts were getting stripped. So I drove one NY plate one CT plate to the nearest service station where they spent all of 30 seconds changing the plate. And then proceded to charge me $5. And they didn't even give me new screws! They put the old rusted stripped ones back on! YES they provided a service, and YES they saved me probably an hour or so of trying to get the bolts off. And I was totally willing to pay them even for the 30 seconds of work. And if they gave me new screws I'd say it was worth the $5. But for what they actually did I think it was a little over the top. I was kind of angry. Almost like when I'm at the movies and they have the nerve to charge like $4 for a bottle of water. Just a little over the top. Things like that bother me. Oh well.

Anyways, it was a loooooong day and I did a LOT of waiting in line but I'm now officially a resident of the state of Connecticut. And I have the bad drivers license picture to prove it. :) The lady didn't tell me when she was taking the picture so I never got to smile and I look like an angry ax-murderer or something. Oh well. But I figure everyone has to have at least one bad license picture.

So here I am, CT's newest resident. YAY for me! :) Beware CT! :) :) :) :) :)

HOW MANY more days?????

Only 90 days....

90 days until I get married! ARGH!!! Too much to do!!!

But very cool beans at the same time!

EEEKS!!! YAY!!! 90 Days!!!!

Sneakers

I've been saying for years and years that I want to wear SNEAKERS at my wedding.

I HATE wearing heels and other types of dress shoes. They're uncomfortable and my feet end up hurting by the end of the day. I want comfort and support! I've had enough foot/ankle problems and pain over the years to know that I'm not going to be a happy camper if I wear dressy type shoes at my wedding. Even the flats. They don't provide the support I need. I'm going to be on my feet ALL day and dancing and I want to be COMFORTABLE! So I'm wearing SNEAKERS! No matter what anyone else says.

People seem horrified by that idea. I'm not 100% sure why, it's a bit unusual yes, but not uncommon, and hey, my dress is floor length! No one will see them! People have suggested flipflops, but I HATE things in between my toes. And flip flops give no support either, probably less than a flat dress shoe. Not happening.

AND I found a piece of info that seals the deal. According to Jewish law, at a wedding there is supposed to be celebration and happiness. It's a mitzvah to celebrate with the Bride and Groom and to entertain them and to be happy and joyous at a wedding. And the mitzvah works both ways. The Bride and Groom are supposed to celebrate with the community just as much as the community celebrates with them. Not only that, it's even considered a sin NOT to celebrate and be happy. And comfort is included in that. Anything that makes a Guest, or the Bride and Groom uncomfortable or anything less than amazingly happy is considered a sin! Go figure! And that includes everything from happiness, celebration, good food, dancing, and fun to clothing and shoes. A dress or stockings or underwear or tuxedo that's too tight or doesn't fit right or is uncomfortable is pretty much forbidden. I'm going to be comfortable in sneakers. And it's a mitzvah to be comfortable and happy at my wedding. Shoes will make me uncomfortable. So sneakers it is! YAY!!!!














And the cool thing is I managed to find fun celebratory sparkly sneakers! SO I get to be comfortable AND bridelike sparkly pretty! Even though people wont really see them. But I'll know! And now you will too! TEE HEE!! YAY for sparkly wedding sneakers!

COOL BEANS!!!!

Guess What!?!?!?!?!

No, I'm not running off with any secret boyfriends, and Yes still LOVE chocolate, especially the dark kind, and no I'm not an alien in hiding, and yes I'm still a vegetarian for weird sensory reasons, and no I'm not completely crazy... Well..... maybe....

ANYWAY...

Since you couldn't guess...

I've been nominated for the Hospital's Employee Quality Award of the Month for September!!! (they're skipping August for some odd reason) HOW COOL!!!! I have no clue as to who nominated me and why but YAY!!! I was completely knocked off of my feet, I've only been there about 6 months... I guess somebody likes me....

If I win I get an award, have my picture flashed on the Employee information slideshow screen thing that's on the bridge to the hospital from the parking lot, and I think some kind of gift/token of sorts and best of all, the BEST PARKING SPOT IN THE GARAGE! (Which means I might get to go a WHOLE MONTH without a scrape scratch or dent in my car!

I may not win and I'm not going to count on it, a lot of people get nominated each month and someone from our department just won this month. But I'm still really honored and happy to be nominated. That COMPLETELY made my day today.

COOL BEANS!!! YAY!!!!

Today is.....

My Two Year BLOGiversary!!!

Yes, on this date two years ago I set out into the unkown expanse of the internet. My goal? To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and civilizations. To boldly go where no Carie has gone before. :) 'Scuse the Trekkie in me. :)

That and to write aboot my life, meet peoples, keep in touch with peoples, have a new form of self-expression, have a home on the web and other reasons found in my very first post.

YAY for BLOGging!!! YAY for Me!!! Happy two years!!! :)

A GREAT Recipe! And Gluten Free Too!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
18 oz peanut butter
1 3/4 cups white sugar
2 eggs
semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar and eggs. Mix well with wooden spoon till smooth and well-blended. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets two inches apart, slightly flatten cookie on the sheet.
4. Bake 8 to 12 minutes or till lightly browned.
5. Cool on cookie sheets for a few minutes than transfer to wire rack. Cool completely.

Stores in airtight containers up to a week

Whew!

I know, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post, I've been busy and tired and not in the mood to spend my evenings typing instead of sleeping.

Quickie update, I had a student start last week, which is good and not so good. Students take up a lot of time and energy and this one is taking up a bit more than others did. I've been pretty lucky in the past, I've had really good students. Really smart, on the ball, knew their stuff etc. This one seems overwhelmed with the hospital which is somewhat understandable, but she also seems to be missing some academic knowledge. So I've been spending a lot of time teaching. Which is good and not so good. What it is, is time consuming, and a bit exhausting for me, and I'm happy to do it, it's my job as a clinical instructor, but at the same time she should come to the rotation knowing these things. Some pretty basic things. And I should be able to concentrate on teaching her how to take her knowledge and apply it clinically instead of giving her the knowledge itself. But we've talked about my concerns and she knows she's got homework and reviewing to do etc. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that it's the first week and things will improve.

Working on wedding planning. Which is stressful and cumbersome enough for about 5 posts. Looking into dance floors and dance lessons and ceremony musicians and hair and we've pretty much got the invitations squared away. We just need to get enough of the paper we want and start printing. We're going to do some of it at home and some at Kinkos. But they'll be really nice. We chose a textured paper which kind of looks like watercolor paper and the printer my parents have is great so it really looks like I painted the invitation. It's a nice effect. But it's been A LOT of work typing everything out and laying it out etc. But SO worth it. The finished product REALLY looks nice.

And I get to wear contacts! I'm trying to get used to them again so I can wear them for the wedding, but my dry eyes hurt, and the drops my optho gave me help but aren't great. I dunno. I'm supposed to go for a follow up this week and we'll see. But I've been trying to acclimate all week and sometimes I just feel as if I want to rip my eyeballs out. We'll see, I've got pleanty of time to find the right lens that I'll tolerate.

Enjoying my synagogue community. Being in shul for Shabbat mornings and bonding with people and making friends and adoring their cute kids and spending amazingly pleasant Shabbat late afternoons/evenings and Havdalah at my Rabbi's house. They have a pretty much open invitation most weeks during the summer which is completely amazing of them, and it's so wonderful to share the final hours of Shabbat talking and watching the kids play around, and the adults play basketball and eating and singing and it's just awesome. Something else that will hopefully get it's own post someday.

I'm reading about 4 books at once. A could of Jewish based books in my never ending quest for spirituality and Jewish learning. One in particular is individual stories of Chasidic girls written by an outsider who spend a year living in Crown Heights among the Lubuvitch. It's a really interesting to read about these girls/women and their lives and happinesses and struggles. I'm very much enjoying it. And then there's the neurosurgery book. It's written by a surgeon who works at my hospital which I didn't even realize until later but it's a really cool insiders view into the life and mind of a neurosurgeon and all the things she's experienced in her field. It was a complete accident I got the book, it was a birthday gift, and I found it incredibly ironic that we work together. Go figure! What are the chances!?!?!? And then there are my never ending Real Simple magazines which I LOVE but am a month and a half behind in reading.

And I've started watching all my Star Trek Voyager episodes again. I have almost the entire series on videotape and I truly forgot how much I LOVED that show! YAY for CAPTAIN JANEWAY!!!!

My fatigue has been catching up with me yet again so I've been to a sleep specialist who had me take a sleep study, an overnight study and a daytime nap study. I'll go into the particulars in another post but suffice it to say, they were NOT fun. A kind of cruel and unusual torture actually. And potentially lethal as I almost strangled & mummified myself up in all the wires they attached to me. So it wasn't fun to start with andstill there was more. The biggest thing that really bothered me was the hospital food. A seemingly small thing but it turned out to be a major upset in an already bad day. It was HORRIBLE. Completely inedible. I wouldn't feed that stuff to anyone. Not even Draco Malfoy or Severus Snape. It was really gross. And worse than the expected gross hospital food that I COULD actually eat was that when they admitted me they asked if I had any dietary restrictions/requests. I told them I don't eat meat, I'm a vegetarian. And so for breakfast they served me bacon and eggs and for lunch chicken. Really great vegetarian food. I'm glad I thought to bring myself some snacks, I needed them.

Hmmmm, what else...

Israel. There's too much going on and it's all emotional and stressful and controversial so I won't even talk about it anymore than to simply say this, I Hope and Pray for Peace in Israel and the Middle East and Throughout the World. As Sandra Bullock said in the very last line of Miss Congeniality I Really Do Want World Peace!!!! And that's all I have to say about that.

As a matter of fact that's all I have to say about anything, this meant to be short post is long enough so it's time to stop BLOGging and go do something else with my time.
BYE!

Monster!!!

TEE HEE!

That's the name of the dog who lives next door. He barks and barks and barks when his owners aren't home, it's somewhat annoying and somewhat understandable. He's in a relatively new environment(they only recently moved in) and they keep him in cool room w/ toys & food etc, but either he's lonely or he hears Rob & I through the wall and barks and barks and barks. Not too much I can do, he's getting betterer and it's not so annoying anymore. He's too cute a dog to be annoyed at.

He's completely the cutest thing, and so friendly and attention seeking and playful... Definitely not a monster. The funnier thing is, he's a fluffy little white bichoh-frise which REALLY doesn't fit his name. But that makes it all the more cute and fun I guess.

Rob and I joke through the wall all the time now, MONSTER!!! Stop barking silly doggie. Rob says we should just dog-sit so he'll get doggie play time and Monster won't bark so much. (Rob is DYING for a dog, I think we need more space & more time @ home, no doggie yet) He LOVES playing with Monster when he sees him.

So, I've decided what I'm naming our dog when we get him. It WAS going to be Fish (I once had a fish named Dog) but I think I like Meef-letz-et better. Hebrew for MONSTER! :) Only problem is that it's a bit long. Oh well, I'll think of something, it's not like we're getting a dog immediately.

In the meantime we'll just have to listen to good ole Monster bark and play.

MAZEL TOV!!!!!!!! (YAY!! Part 2)

Today I went to a Brit Milah, aka Bris. You might remember that aboot 6 months ago I BLOGGED YAY!



Adam and Laurie were going to have a baby!!!

Well, here he is!!!! A bit earlier than expected but still very welcome all the same. And today he entered into his covenant with Gd and the Jewish people. He also was given his name, as tradition dictates that a baby boy is not named until his bris. (So for the last three weeks {A bris is usually 8 days after birth unless medical needs need to come first and as he was born so early the bris waited a bit} he was being referred to as "He Who Has Not Been Named" in Adam's Harry Potter lovingness) His name was given to him along with his circumcision so as he enters the covenant, so may he enter into the Torah, the marriage canopy, and good deeds.

So Welcome to the World and Welcome to the Jewish People to Gavriel Moshe Stern.

And much Love and Mazel to Adam and Laurie.