End of November

Tonight we had Sam's medical school roommates over for dinner and cooked chicken on the new BBQ. We got to have leftover pie from Thanksgiving, and veggies, and some rice.  It was very nice to catch up with the guys, and the apartment is SO festive that it made the whole evening all the better. 

Sam had the day off finally, and he got to go golfing and play tennis- which was great!  Tomorrow he goes on the Night Shift until Monday morning, December 5th.  Poor guy.  He'll have to work nights on his birthday and that means no celebrating after today.  

My childhood best friend is coming to Irvine this weekend after her residency interview at UCLA on Saturday- I can't wait!  Michelle hasn't been out to visit in a long time because she's been so busy with medical school in Texas.  I have been out to see her once, and I'm going to Dallas for her graduation this June.  

I can't wait for December to get here, so that we can officially have the countdown to Christmas!

Gratitude

This morning, Mom and Dad wanted to pick up a few last minute items that we had forgotten in all our shopping and decorating.  We headed into Target to buy a Christmas wreath that my Dad hung over the fireplace, a poinsettia to put near the hearth, and red place mats to match the tablecloth Mom brought me.  She even threw in a set of 4 red plates that we can use.  And don't think we forgot Chanukah- we bought a dreidel, some gold covered chocolate coins, and a blue decal menorah with flames just in case Sam's parents can't bring theirs down when they come to visit.  Sam's aunt made us one but it caught fire last year, and he can't find one he likes that we can buy.  C'est la vie.

I think Mom and Dad were both really happy with the decorations when they left.  My Mom is the queen of decorating for the holidays and it would have been incredibly difficult for me to be away from them, not in Moraga, and not decorated environment at Christmas.  My Dad mentioned that he had no idea I spend so much time alone and he's glad I will have such a great, festive home to relax in after work.  I couldn't agree with him more!

And then, after we had everything in place, they had to pack up the car and drive back to Northern California to get home to our little dog, Max.  

Spending time with them  over the last 4 days has reminded me how incredibly lucky I am to have such wonderful family and friends.  I love having visitors, especially Mom and Dad.  And even though I've lived here in SoCal for over 4 years, I still get so sad when it's time to say goodbye.  Maybe this time was especially hard because I won't be able to see them at Christmas, and Sam's not home.

Time to focus on Michelle's visit from Texas next weekend when she interviews at UCLA for residency!  

Black Friday

I have never been Black Friday Shopping before this year.  Mom was definitely missing Carina, her partner in retail shopping, so I agreed to head to the mall with her before meeting one of my tennis class friends to play tennis.

Mom was in my room to wake me up at 6am... WTF?!?!  It's the holidays, why would we get up at 6am to go shopping?  She must have been really confused about which daughter she was spending the holidays with at that point.  :-)  But I digress, we got up and drove to Fashion Island, the mall in Newport Beach.  Our first receipts were stamped 7am.  For the love of God, I was in a mall before 7am people- that is a FIRST!  We bought lots of great stuff that I have wanted for a while, practical kitchen stuff.

Then we went to the Apple store and I hit the jackpot.  Mom's 3G hasn't been functioning with her Words With Friends (which she is addicted to) so I had promised her I would fix it for her.  We used her free upgrade and split the cost of a new iPhone 4Gs for me and then had the Apple Store Guys erase my iPhone 4G and upload all of my Mom's stuff onto it.  Not bad, ladies and gentlemen.  She's got the ability to play all her games and I'm going to benefit from Siri (if that is actually a benefit).

We went into Nordstroms and Urban Outfitters and Antonia's.  When we finally got home (I cancelled my tennis date) Dad had pulled up the carpet to run the wires to our surround sound DVD/TV speakers and set the whole system up for us.  I think that was his Thank You to Sam for getting the football games on Thanksgiving.  :-)

From there, Mom, Dad and I went to town Decking the Halls for Christmas.  Dad was a huge help.  After he set up the tree my Mom gave me, he hung the picture that used to belong to my maternal grandparents up in the kitchen, and he hung up our Christmas lights on our patio which required him to run some extension cords and get a little creative.  By far the best thing was that he and Mom bought Sam and I a barbecue as our combined Christmas present and Sam's birthday gift.  When Sam came home, we met him at the garage and my Dad set up a tennis ball on a string so that Sam knows how far to pull in without hitting the front of the car or leaving the tail end to be crunched by the garage door.

When Sam came into the house he was surprised to see how much we had accomplished, he called us Team Disney.  It was great to see him smiling so widely when I took him out on the balcony to see the new grill- he was so excited.  And he and my Mom got to sit on the couch in front of the fireplace while Dad and I grilled filet mignon and asparagus to go with Mom's salad and the left over sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving Dinner.

It was a really nice dinner.  We opened and decanted the Carmenere wine from the Mont Gras winery we visited with Sam's parents in Chile.  I bought them the bottle for their birthday gifts and they were super pleased with it.  It was, as I said, a really nice dinner.  And Mom and I had wrapped her other gift for Sam's birthday and gotten him a card so that we could sing to him with a candle in his piece of left-over pie after dinner.  She bought him a couple of cute ornaments- a soccer player, one that says JOY, and one that says "Better Not Pout".  I think he liked them because he immediately got up and hung them.  He even broke out the espresso alfahores (cookies) from Chile to share with my folks.

Thanksgiving 2011

My parents came down from Northern California on Tuesday night to celebrate Thanksgiving with Sam and I.  On Wednesday, while Sam and I were at work, they unloaded their car and brought into the apartment all of our Christmas gifts from the Santi and Galle sides of the family, the serving dishes and little things Nonna Santi sent me, and the Thanksgiving Dinner stuff- Mom's roasting pan, the electric knife, etc.  

I came home, and we went through some of our family photos from wine tasting this summer so my Mom could pick some for the family Christmas card.  While we were on the couch around the computer, I showed them the ease and convenience of Shutterfly for making Christmas Cards.  Dad loved it.  We picked out the background and the photos right then and there and ordered them the cards.  Not too bad at all!  And just in time for Sam to get home from the hospital and for us to head to Mom and Dad's favorite sushi restaurant, Buddah's Favorite, for dinner.  

Thursday morning, Dad was hurting for a lack of football.  Sam and I cancelled our cable TV while I was unemployed and we haven't set it back up yet.  He went down to Mutt Lynch's on the peninsula to watch the Green Bay v Detroit game while I got the Turkey going.  Mom wasn't feeling 100% so she stayed mostly out of the kitchen, and since Sam was gone working, this was really my first Thanksgiving that I cooked solo.  We perfected our Crockpot Turkey method this year by performing a double wing-ectomy which helped the lid fit snuggly on the stoneware.  While the turkey was cooking, I made my first from-scratch pumpkin pie.  It was fun!  I used a weight watchers recipe and I have to say, the phyllo dough crust wasn't all that great but the pumpkin filling was delish!  

Right around noon, Dr. Galle surprised Mom and I by coming home early- yay!  And he did Dad a big favor by figuring out how to get the Dallas v Miami game on our TV via online streaming through the laptop.  Dad was quite impressed.  Because the turkey was in the crockpot, we didn't have to do much in the afternoon.  Sam took two little cat naps, and we took a walk before the 49er game started- which we found online streaming in HD.

Dad and Sam hung out on the couches and watched the game while I made us mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and gravy.  Mom helped me out and did the stuffing on the stovetop since we had pulled the turkey out of the crockpot and put it in the oven to brown and crisp the outside.  Just FYI: we timed dinner perfectly with halftime.

After dinner, Mom and I did the dishes and the boys resumed their places on the couch to watch the end of the 3rd quarter of the game.  Unfortunately, as you know, the game did not end well for Jim Harbaugh, but at least we had wine, pie, and whipped cream to cheer us up. 

Holiday Season

Finishing up my fall quarter classes was very time consuming last week.  I am so thankful to be finished with everything!  There's a cool class offered this winter that I really want to take, but I'm worried about the course load interfering with launching the marketing campaign at work.  The good news is that I have several classmates who will be taking this class, and they are more than willing to help with the workload.  

The new job has been great- last week I finished redesigning the logo and started on the business card template.  I'm organizing a professional photo shoot this coming week, and baking cupcakes to surprise my coworkers.

With the holidays fast approaching, I spent this weekend cleaning house and doing laundry.  Last night we went to Ryan's house to watch the Cal v. Stanford football game, which was fun.  We got to catch up with a few of the guys who have been on their away rotations this fall.

Today was a cold, rainy day- I was happy to be inside!  I made Christmas presents for Sam, his parents, and his brother.  It took me forever, but I'm really happy with the end product.  I spent some time on a project for work before making dinner.  And Sam and I designed our inaugural Christmas Photo Card while catching up on last week's TV.  He still has to edit the letter, but that is less crucial because I wanted to take advantage of the promotional offers on Shutterfly and they are expiring tomorrow.  With any luck I should have everything addressed and in the mail by December 2nd!  

Anyway, Sam and I are heading to bed.  He has the day off tomorrow but I need to get to work early.  I can't wait to see my parents when they come into town Tuesday night- it will be fun to have them visit.

Gift Wrap

I can't believe that the holiday season is almost here... my parents come to visit in 9 days for Thanksgiving!  Hence I am trying to get their gifts and my sister's wrapped and labeled so they can drive them to NorCal when they head home.  Next on my agenda is to start working on gifts for Sam's family... I already know what I'm doing, it's just a matter of sitting down and taking on the project.  Maybe I will do that this afternoon...

Sam took his Orthopedic Surgery Department Exam yesterday.  It's an annual exam that ensures the residents will pass their Board Exams and graduate from Residency.  He has been really bummed lately because his Trauma schedule has him working the entire week of Thanksgiving without a day off.  I think this mostly troubles him because my parents are coming down Tuesday-Sunday and he won't be able to spend a single day with them.  Making things worse, he has to work nights on his birthday so we won't be able to celebrate until 4 days later.  To ice the cake, he is pretty sure that he won't get Christmas Eve or Christmas Day off when his parents are in town.  And we're both assuming NYE is a bust as well.  [Insert plea to be including in someone's NYE plans here]  

I keep trying to tell Sam that things will get better, but unfortunately that won't happen until 3rd year.  Next year will in fact be worse.  He will be on call overnight every 4th night and the 4 2nd year residents will have to take turns covering the weekends.  Not good.  I am accepting any and all advice from residents and significant others who have survived the 2nd year of ortho residency.

Happiness

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!  

I love you!

*Note* I do not mean to sound like I am bragging, but this was the best week of my career.

No, seriously, it was the coolest.  I got to redesign the company logo... well I'm still working on it, but hopefully I will be done sometime next week.  And I got to know the other 9 people in the company- some a little better than others.  The techs who perform the installations, maintenance, and cabling are all REALLY nice.  I especially like our HR woman who is the only other girl in the office.  She and I have been bonding over our history in sports (hers in soccer and mine in water polo) and I also really like her husband, the tech supervisor/manager.  He set up my new MacBook with both OS and Windows operating systems and set up a VPN (virtual private network) so that I can run all our office programs and access our servers from home.  My boss, the CEO/President/Owner, gave me permission to work from home for an hour or two in the morning or afternoon if it's too noisy in the office and I'm being distracted.  Right now, I don't think I'll need to do that... but it's good to know that I have the option.  In all seriousness, I will probably wait until we start heavily launching the social media campaign to do something like that, and also until I have my company phone.

On that topic: they want me to have a work cell phone, and have given me two options.

• The first option is to use my own personal cell phone and have the company set up a google voice phone number for me to use professionally that will forward to my cell phone.  The downside of that, is all outbound calls would have my cell phone number on caller ID unless I block it.  A former co-worker told me that she would NOT recommend blocking my number because many people (myself included) don't answer unknown calls.  I also don't know if I could sync my personal Mac calendars with my Outlook calendar on my iPhone or if I have to choose one to be primary.  
• The other option is that the company would provide me with a cell phone to be used only professionally... which is kind of a cool idea because then I would be able to keep a clean division between work and personal communication.  It does, however, complicate matters because then I have 2 phones to keep track of and probably a new phone to learn because it's doubtful they would get me an iPhone... although they did get me a MacBook.  

In addition to getting to know my new co-workers, I also had two business lunches- my first ever!  Wednesday I took my boss' place at a leads sharing luncheon and Friday we met one of the Senior Board Members for our city's Chamber of Commerce.  My boss asked me to make an effort to attend some of the Chamber's monthly meetings when the start back up in January, so stay tuned for more on that.

All in all, life is going well for me... I am eager to end classes this coming week because as it is I am going straight from work to class on Mondays and Wednesdays and Sam has been complaining that he never gets to see me.  My how the tables have turned!  In all seriousness, it's doubtful that I would take 2 classes while working full-time at this job.  I will possibly take one class in January, but the one offered is supposedly very academic and numbers oriented so I am a little concerned about my ability to juggle that and the responsibilities of my job.  

Time will tell!

Back To Work

Well ladies and gentlemen, I am officially back in the workforce as of Monday.  I accepted a job as a Marketing Manager at a small communications technology company in Lake Forest, ironically just around the corner from my previous company's building.  That should make for some exiting run-ins at the food court!

So far, I really like all of my new coworkers.  There are 2 front office guys, the owner/CEO/president, 4 service techs, 1 sales guy, the HR woman, and myself.  Yes, that means there are only 2 ladies in the office... unless you count the owner's dog, Mindy, who is our mascot and comes to work every day.  

I have definitely take a HUGE bite that will probably take some chewing, but I am really happy in my new environment.  Despite the unavoidable headaches that I will probably be experiencing when things get underway, I think this is an unbelievable opportunity for me and certainly something that I am excited to pursue.

And now, I am headed to bed (where Sam has been for an hour already) because I am making the effort to be a little more professionally dressed at work this time around.  If anyone has any marketing connections, I would greatly appreciate any and all advice that I can get- I am trying to build myself a support network so that when things come up that I haven't seen before I have people I can rely on for help.

PS- I am now one of those people who puts a notepad next to the bed because in the middle of the night last night I was up, mind racing, and the only way I could get it to calm down was by writing everything on paper.

PPS- Next week my Fall Quarter marketing classes end, which I could not be more excited about.  It's tough going to work 8-5 and then straight to class until 9:30!