October randoms...

I can't believe October is almost over.  Actually, I can.  It's true...the older I get, the faster the time flies by.

Coffee.

A little comfort-in-a-cup to get me through some morning study time.

 I never thought I'd really become a coffee drinker.  Even though I really, really wanted one of those Keurig machines and my fabulous mother-in-law, Jody, got me one for Christmas last year...I never really wanted it to make coffee.  I was excited about the little hot cocoa and tea cups, but the coffee, not so much.  However, once Tim finally moved up to Chicago with me, coffee slowly made its way into my cup.  I'm loving the Pike Place brew from Starbucks.  They don't have K-cups yet for Starbucks, but they do make a neat, reusable filter basket so you can use any coffee your little heart desires - sans K-cup.  I'm not a caffeine freak by any means, it's not even really a daily thing for me.  I do mine with a splash of half & half, a bit of Stevia and a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Yum!

Chocolate.

Chocolove.

I'm sure I've mentioned this chocolate before.  It is my favorite in the whole-wide-world...but I'm always open to any challengers!  The raspberry used to be my favorite - but the almonds & sea salt is currently in the lead.  Perfect combo of salty and sweet!  The orange peel is okay, but not one of my faves.  I can usually find this delicious treat at Whole Foods or World Market.

Patio weather.

I'm afraid these days are behind us - at least until next June...unless we travel somewhere warm!  Tim and I jumped at the chance one warm, October afternoon at the Duckfat Tavern.  Tim was in the mood for microbrews...I was in the mood for a good ol' PBR.   Damn you, you cold, dark, depressing Chicago winters...

Ice cream.

I don't think this picture needs any explanation.  It was good, but I've definitely had better Ben & Jerry's.  All I have to say is life is too short to take yourself so seriously....One Million Moms.

Friends.

I must say that Molly is one of my most favorite girlfriends.  She flew into Chicago last weekend for the Notre Dame/USC game in Southbend and she was so kind to squeeze an evening with me into her busy schedule!  We had a fun, yummy Italian dinner and then spent the rest of the evening drinking Skinnygirl white cranberry cosmos and watching part one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey reunion.  We used to have a weekly girls night when we both lived in Wichita, which consisted of cooking/eating yummy food, drinking wine and watching whatever season of the Real Housewives was on Bravo.  Can't wait until our next girls night!

Bring on November!

Better late than never.

Last month, Pat, Melissa and Mark came to Chicago for a weekend full of decadence and debauchery.  We found that a Wrigley Field hot dog and an Old Style can almost cure any hangover (we're not 21 anymore!) and any business professional can act like a fool - and it's pretty much the funniest thing ever.  Guys - come back anytime!!!

Night #1 - 1 Pat - 0

Cubs game.

Bringing sexy back.  Almost.

Babes.

Hey-o!

Secret lovers.

Secret drunks - at Three Floyds Brewery.

Not so secret drunk. Aka Mark.

Do you know this guy?

Frisky cub.

The pictures of Mark "passed out" weren't a true depiction of his state of mind that night...he really wasn't passed out drunk.  But it was super funny watching people walk by thinking he was.  Guess you had to be there.

Veggie yum yums.

Hey everyone.  Yes, I know, it's been a few days since I've posted.  Okay, it's been a few weeks since I've posted.  Anywho, I've been busy getting back into the swing of things with my fall school schedule.  Nothing really new and exciting to share, I don't even have any fun pictures to post.

Tim and I got a gym membership yesterday.  I've been trying to mentally prepare Tim for how awful, cold, dark and depressing Chicago winters can be.  It gets dark at 4:30 p.m., there is always at least 3-5 inches of snow on the ground and well, it's just plum cold.  So last night I headed down the street to a Bally's (I'm sure you've all heard of those) because of course yesterday was the last day to sign up to get a special monthly rate/no joining fee thing.  It's actually a pretty sweet deal - we're paying about the same for what I paid for a single membership at the Y back in Wichita, and we get to use any Bally's location in the US...and I'm super excited because they have spin/cycle classes, which I love.  Plus, it will just be something fun Tim and I can do together, to get us out of the house during the long, dark - did I mention depressing? - winter months.

I'll sign off with a yummy meal Tim and I have been eating a lot of recently.  It's easy, healthy and super delish.  Roasted veggies!!!  Take any vegetable - preferably ones in season - slice 'em up (bite size is best) and throw 'em on a cookie sheet (I like to line it with foil, makes for an easy clean up).  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle any yummy herbs on top (I've been using dried herbs de Provence that we brought back from our honeymoon in France, but I'm sure you could try anything else - basil, parsley, etc.) along with salt and pepper of course.  I roast 'em in the oven at 400F for about 35-45 minutes.  But wait - it gets even better.  After I pull 'em out of the oven, I heat up a skillet with olive oil and fresh chopped garlic, and sit back and watch a little something I like to call the 'garlic dance'.  You know, when the garlic jumps around in the yummy oil on the skillet.  Add the roasted veggies in and let 'em soak up all that garlicky goodness.  I know I haven't created something amazing here, I'm just sharing with you in case you forgot how easy it was to roast veggies.  We've been using potatoes - the little red or gold ones - carrots, and red onion.  But my personal favorite so far has been a red onion mixture with butternut squash - probably the most amazing veggie in the whole world as far as I'm concerned.  Soon I'm going to get brave and try some other root veggies - parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, etc.  But whatever you do, do yourself a favor and saute the finished product in the garlic.

Year two.

Just finished week one of year number two!  My new schedule is awesome...only taking 18 hours this trimester.  On Thursday, we took Diego to our new vet (I took the little ones last week) so he could get a checkup and get our papers signed so we could (legally) play at the dog park.  We've been walking the dogs past it for a few weeks now, and we can finally give in to those "can we please please please go play" looks!

Fletcher - taking a water break!

Max - being a big baby.

Tim & Diego.

Our new home.

My two week break is coming to an end.  Tomorrow I start my second year of med school.  Break was awesome and much needed, but I'm starting to get restless and I'm excited to get back into my daily routine.  I'm sure I'll be thinking differently here in about 10 weeks. 

I know I've been saying that I was going to blog about our new place, complete with pictures.  Well, here they are!

View of our front door into the living room.

Living room - the plaid chairs are too big for the area, so we're in the process of picking out some new ones. (The smaller art is an original piece by Tim and the larger one is by a local Wichita artist.)

Other side of the living room.

View of front door looking back towards the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom.

Kitchen.

Bathroom.

I decided not to include pictures of the bedrooms, well, just because I'm sure everyone has seen a bed in a room.  I guess our second bedroom is more of a workspace for Tim - and has a big closet (for me!) - so nothing out of the ordinary.  We love the area we live in but we did have to forgo a few things - no patio, no backyard...but we live about 4 blocks away from a cool street with lots of pubs/restaurants with patios and we live just around the corner from a fun, little dog park that our dogs can go run around and play in.  Needless to say, I'm glad year one is done and I'm ready for year two - this time with my family!

Mom & Dad's visit.

I'm pretty sure I've eaten enough calories in the past 5 days to keep me alive until the end of 2011.  Mom and Dad came to town and we ate our way through it!  Well, we did lots of other fun stuff too.  We started with lunch at O'Sullivan's, an Irish pub that was having a Mexican food special day (random, right?) but we just partook in $2 Mexican beers and the typical bar food spread.  After letting mom & pops rest up after a long flight (note sarcasm), we walked back down to Madison St. for dinner at The Duckfat Tavern & Grill.  Yum yum.  Started with duckfat fries with yummy dipping sauces.  By the end of a day filled with booze and grease, I opted for the grilled vegetable plate, which was actually pretty amazing.  Grilled veggies drizzled with balsamic vinegar...DELISH!  Dad and Tim indulged in the bacon mac & cheese (YUMMY).  After stuffing ourselves at dinner, we thought it was only appropriate that we end the evening with ice cream at The Brown Cow Ice Cream Parlor.  I think I was in a food coma, because I forgot to pull out my camera for day one!

On day two, Tim had to work (sad face!) so the three of us donned our Cubs gear and hopped on the train towards Wrigley Field.  It was a PERFECT day for a baseball game - 80 F weather, clear blue skies, sun shining...

We had hotdogs with grilled onions, beer, and smiles on our faces - even though the Cubs suck - and had a fun afternoon.  Later on, we decided to give our tummies a rest so we went to Whole Foods and made a yummy dinner at home -amazing Icelandic salmon, sauteed asparagus and a mixed salad.

Day three - Tim was still working (super sad face!) - we hopped back on the train and headed to the city for some tourist action.  We walked down Navy Pier and had a beer at the Landshark Beer Garden.  We also decided it was necessary to get some pictures with the Bean.  Again, beautiful weather.

 

The Bean!

That evening, Tim finally got done working (happy face!) and we had an amazing dinner - again on Madison St. - at Francesca's Fiore.  We thought we were just going to sit on the patio for a bit and have a drink before Tim met up with us, but the weather was amazing (again) and the menu looked pretty good, so we decided to make an evening of it.  Our waiter was fun and the manager liked us (who wouldn't !?!?) so they took very good care of us.  After a few bottles of wine and some amazing Italian cuisine (calamari, insalata caprese, pasta, etc.) we were officially stuffed (again).  Somehow, Dad and Tim found the strength to finish the evening back at the Brown Cow for ice cream (even though we got a mini dessert for celebrating my birthday - which is in November - at the restaurant).  We decided to celebrate early because I probably won't see my parents again until Christmas!

Maybe that was three bottles of wine...

My birthday dessert.

They treated us with Limoncello after dinner!

Dad had to fly back Saturday, so Tim and I took mom around Forest Park a bit more.  We did a bit of shopping, had lunch and saw a movie - Crazy Stupid Love.  It was awesome - go see it!  After a lazy afternoon, we mentally prepared ourselves to eat (once again) good ol' Chicago deep dish pizza - per mom's request (she didn't have to twist our arms).  Dinner at Edwardo's Natural Pizza was the best decision we had made all day. 

I took mom to the airport this morning.  It was such a fun five days and I knew it would fly by.  I'm one lucky gal to have such fun, cool, awesome parents.

What I learned being a vegetarian.

Many of you who know me well, know that I've been a vegetarian for about the past year and a half.  I made the choice mainly based on how I was feeling during this time in my life where I was making significant changes to my diet.  I noticed that whenever I ate meat, I felt a "heavy" feeling in my stomach and sometimes stomach pain/discomfort.  So I just decided not to eat meat.  I felt much better (well, I still do) when I didn't consume meat.  I also started reading a really cool book (The Kind Diet) and found a lot of information I wasn't aware of (basically, where some of our food comes from...eeek!), so that also helped me make my decision to become a vegetarian.

So, fast forward to this summer.  Around the end of June, I was in class one morning and noticed my neck and upper back were super sore (more so than normal).  Towards the end of the day, I was in a lot of pain and then my arms, hands and fingers started going numb and felt really tingly.  Yikes, that was not a good feeling.  I called the clinic on my campus and made an appointment with an intern.  A few days and a few x-rays later, we determined that anatomically, everything was looking okay.  That was a big relief.  I mean honestly, I was really worried since my arms were going all tingly and weird on me.  After reviewing a few other things in my file, my intern (Jenny) decided it would be beneficial to do some lab work.  We talked about my diet and supplements that I take, and decided it would be important to check my vitamin B12 level.  Jenny thought this was important to do because I had a few symptoms that were indicative of a B12 deficiency.  I had my level checked about 2 years prior, which happened to be a little on the low side then, so I started taking a B12 supplement and I continued to do so, especially since I was a vegetarian (you basically can only get B12 from animal products).  I told my intern I would be surprised if it was low, especially since I was taking a daily supplement.  Well, we got the results back and they were REALLY low.  My levels had dropped about 200 points since I had become a vegetarian.  I did a 7-day diet diary and we determined that my diet, along with supplementation, should have been giving me the adequate amount of B12 (with my diet, I was still consuming cheese and yogurt, which does contain B12).  So we did some additional lab work to try and determine why my body was not absorbing the B12.  One major concern we wanted to rule out was pernicious anemia.  Pernicious anemia is an autoimmune disease where your body produces antibodies that attack these cells in your stomach that help absorb the B12.  My antibody levels for this came back elevated...high enough to cause concern, but not abnormally high. 

To make a long story short, I'm taking a different form of the B12 supplement (the one I was on before had to be converted in my body before it could be absorbed, so for some reason my body was not converting it, or just simply not absorbing it) so hopefully this new form, which is immediately absorbed (no converting!) will help raise my B12 level.  I also started to eat meat again, which has actually been okay.  I don't eat it everyday and I when I do it's usually fish, sometimes chicken or pork.  I'm starting to feel better, i.e. no more tingly arms!  I'll have more lab work done in a few months to see if the new supplement and changes to my diet are helping increase my B12 level.  I'm happy and relieved that I found someone in the clinic to help me figure out what in the world was going on, and I'm glad that my intern didn't just stop at my back/neck pain.  A B12 deficiency left untreated can cause many problems and unfortunately if treated too late, the damage is irreversible. 

If anyone has more questions about a B12 deficiency, just let me know.  I have information for days and I didn't want to make this blog post any longer than it already is.  I included links in the body above, so hopefully that can help with any questions as well.