Orthopedic Rotation

Tonight starts Sam's Orthopedic Surgery rotation at UCI... It's 9:23pm as I start typing and he is still not home yet.  Oh what a wonderful 12 days of Christmas this is going to be!  I jest, I jest.  In all seriousness, as much as we've been pleasantly surprised by the lack of crazy thus far in Sam's intern year rotations, I think all our worst thoughts are about to come true.  

So what will I do?  Well, for starters, I am going to try to get together a group of folks to watch the Newport Beach Boat Parade sometime this week.  I've made plans to go every year, and every year I cancel because it's raining.  This year, I'm going to try to get a group of friends to commit to dinner and make a reservation along the water where we can watch the parade from the warmth of indoor seating and delicious adult beverages.  What can I say?  Ya get older, ya get wiser.

On the flip-side, I am apparently still a novice at online shopping.  I wanted to buy Sam a fancy Christmas stocking so that mine didn't look so snobby- I should mention that mine is not diamond-crusted or anything, as you can see in the photo, it's an embroidered/cross-stitched picture of a bear on a rocking horse and a Christmas Tree with presents beneath it and it has my name sewn on it.  Nonna Santi got it for me when I was born and it's always had a very special place in my heart because stockings continue to be a BIG part of my family's Christmas tradition.  Anyway, I really wanted to include Sam and his family in the magic of stockings, so I went online and found a bunch of really cool ones.  Rather than going over the top, I figured I would see how this year goes before I bought everyone in his family a new stocking.  So I took some time and really considered what would be a nice, non-denomenational stocking scene that wasn't too girly or child-themed.  I picked out one that was really fancy and ornate, like an idiot.  When the stocking arrived, it turned out that I ordered a DO-IT-YOURSELF cross-stitch stocking craft kit.  Oh.My.God.  The reviews online, when I looked closer, said that it took one woman 4 months to finish.  FOUR MONTHS PEOPLE.

Of course Sam wants me to begin work right away, but I have never cross-stitched anything in my life.  I tried to watch a you tube video but that only further convinced me that I'm screwed.  Hopefully over the weekend I will have some time to sit down and focus my energy on beginning this project.  If I fail, my Mom said she will look around and find the perfect one for Sam next year... talk about having a great plan B.  I mean honestly, just looking at that jumbled spaghetti-looking mess of threads makes me anxious!

So anyway, as the 12 days of Christmas kick off tomorrow, I will be channeling all of my crafty talents and getting ready to undertake the project I am affectionately referring to as: "Make Sam's Stocking By December 2012."  With all the time I'm going to have alone in the evenings perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing to have ordered a do-it-yourself stocking kit.