Thanks for a great time, Vegas!

Summer's gonna be hard here in Oklahoma! No family get togethers every weekend. No Wednesday nights. No Diep's Chicken.

Amy's Real World Schedule

*inspired by Phi*

6:45 am- wake up, take the dogs out
7:45am -breakfast (always)
8:00am- drive 25 mins to work
8:30am- work
10:00am -work
12:00pm -lunch (usually doesn't happen until 12:30)
1:00pm- back to work
2:00pm- more work
4:30pm- still more work
5:30pm- leave work, drive home
5:45pm- sitting in traffic
6:15pm-home, take dogs out
6:30pm- shower
7:00pm- cook dinner (which may or may not include frozen foods and a microwave). Also Gmail/Facebook/Blogger time
8:00pm- dinner, TV
9:00pm- take dogs out
10:00pm-11:00pm- bed

Wake up and repeat

Saturday Schedule
9:30am- Wake up
12:00pm- Sam's Club/SuperTarget/Lowes ...
9:30pm - sleep

:)

Family Cao visit

I showed John's parents his 30 day diet. They didn't seem as amused as I thought they would. They asked me if I ate the same way. "Nope". Moments later she questioned why I didn't cook things for him to eat : / . Thinking to myself "I'm not his mother." Trying to defend myself: "We'll grill chicken and burgers, or steak. Or sometimes I'll make pasta and he'll eat it. But usually it's hard to cook two separate meals for two people. We end up having so much extra food. And John doesn't like eating left overs. Plus he doesn't want me to cook things for him because he knows he won't eat it." On a side note, we had our friends, John and Linda, over for dinner. We were joking about how my John doesn't eat corn. Leading to the fact that he won't eat pretty much any vegetable. I asked mommy Cao if he ever ate veggies even as a kid. She said no. Then Linda half laughing asked, "Sau khong bi dong?!" (excuse any miss spellings). Oh, what to do, what to do.

Dress shopping with Jean

My good friend Jean is getting married next spring! I am so happy for her. She is one of 3 UMBC friends I still keep in contact with. The other two people are James and John (the guy I married :oD ). Most people don't remember how they first met their friends. But Jean and I both remember how our friendship started, 9 years ago in freshman Biology.

This little Chinese girl leaned over to the other 3 or 4 students who sat next to her, including me, and asked us if we all wanted to study together. It kind of caught me off guard. Most college kids kept within their own groups. She was so outgoing and friendly. I said ok. We started a bio study group and quickly became friends. She was planning to study business. I was studying information systems. Other than biology, we didn't have any other classes in common. Eventually I smartened up and switched over to nursing, while Jean switched to dentistry. Before I left UMBC I decided to take one more bio course with her. I'm glad I did since we got to be study buddies for the last time. From then on we went our separate ways and rarely talked on the phone or saw each other anymore. She then moved to NYC while I stayed in MD. I visited her twice within those 4 years. Some would say it sounds like we drifted a part. Maybe in distance we did. But each time we spoke to each other it was as if we saw each other all the time. There was no awkward back and forth "so, what have you been up to?". We always had something to talk about.

Fast forward to today. Jean and her fiance are living in Dallas, 3 hours away from Oklahoma City. Out of the entire world, they decided to move near us! Within the past 10 months, we have seen each other more than we ever have in 6 years. I'm so happy we've kept up our friendship. Below are some photos of a recent Dallas trip.




Wedding gown shopping at Priscilla of Boston! So many beautiful dresses.


One of our favorites. She didn't end up getting one that day.



Lunch with Jason, Jean's fiance, at the Village Burger Bar. Yum-Oh!


Living in the midwest means crappy seafood. We were both craving blue
crabs, but had to settle on Korean store crawfish. Not bad.


Hotpot for dinner! I love this stuff. So easy and good for you.


Dinner time at Jean and Jason's!



Botanical garden with Jean's friend. Felt good to spend the day outside.


My trip ended with this. Yes, I have developed a liking for fro yo :)

Beach Body

John and I are still P90X-ing it! 2 weeks in!

Doc Menopause

I've been at my new work place for 9 months now and for some reason I still have this fear that I'm not doing well enough. I sometimes find myself wondering, "I'm really not fit for this job. I don't know what the heck I'm doing and people trust me to help them?!" Some days I go home and worry that I'll get a call from some emergency room saying my patient so-and-so was there and had some awful bad, near death thingamagig that I caused earlier today in the office. Or I'm afraid I'll miss something. "Yes, it was indeed cancer... and YOU missed it." School only teaches so much. And in my case, school taught me that if you want to learn something, you really have to find it out on your own. Screw you midwifery program director. Compared to the other PAs and the doctor, I'm the weakest link. They all are so smart. They ask the right questions and are able to think outside the box. They know the lab values of everything and what it means if its off. They know the dosages of that odd medication that I can't even pronounce. Me, I have my little peripheral brain, i.e. my handy dandy notebook where I scribble every little bit of knowledge I learn. Most of what I'm doing here at this job, I learned on the job. And I still have a ton more to learn. Ugh. You think reading and researching is over once you graduate. Nope. It's not all bad though. I liked school and I'm glad I have to continue to work my brain. It's just now after all long day of helping women with hotflashes, nightsweats, no sleep, irritability, fatigue, no sex drive, anxiety, depression, weight gain, hairloss, memory loss, PMS, heavy periods, no periods, pelvic pain, breast pain, joint pain, head pain, ear pain (you'd think people would realize we're a GYNECOLOGY practice, I know jack about your ear), I would rather log onto facebook than medline. All in all, I really feel lucky to have this job. It's more than I expected, but if I can learn a bit about your ear from watching the doc or PA, then I will be more than happy to help you. On a side note, I'm totally legit now! Lookie, I'm on the website: www.docmenopause.com Not too crazy about my photo.

Year of the Dragon

John's mom has been trying to get a hold of me for the past 3 days. She usually calls while I'm at work and it's from a number that I don't recognize. She never leaves a message, so I don't call the number back. Who would? So I come home on Friday and John asks me how come I don't call his mom back. Oh sh*t. What is it now. Usually she calls John and if she needs anything she'll ask to talk to me then, or just ask John to ask me. What's so important that she called me for 3 days and didn't tell John to just ask me to call her? "John, am I in trouble?" Of course he had no idea why. John's mom is nice. But she can be intense. Scary, loud, Asian Mom kind of intense.

So I call her. The first thing she accuses me of is ignoring her calls! "No, no I didn't recognize the number you called me from!" Okay, she eases up and asks me how my family is doing. She knows Nancy is in Europe for 2 months (for which from the tone of her voice I could tell is something she doesn't approve of) and how Sandy is living in DC for now. Then asks me what my sisters were doing for money... as far as jobs and future thingys go. I never liked when she made such a big deal about money. I told her I was happy for my sisters and that they were both smart girls and I had no worries. "mmm, ok". She's always asking me about my job too, which is thoughtful until she starts asking things like "how much do you make?" and "do you get raises" "what about bonus?" uuugggghhhh. Doesn't just do this to me, oh no. John too. She's been telling John to change jobs because he should be making more money. It's a great job, with great people, with the opportunity to grow. But nope, the best jobs are the ones where you make MONEY. :( okay, so I wasn't planning on writing about all that b/c that's not why she called. It still frustrating though. She called because it was gonna be the Year of the Dragon....

"A good year to have a baby" AH! Apparently Bich and Chau are gonna try for a baby this summer. It would be a good idea for me and John too since 1. Bich and Chau are gonna have a baby, 2. It will be the Year of the Dragon, and 3. she has the need to remind me about how old John and I are. I'm thinking 5 or 6 years before starting any type of a family. But I'll be so close to 35 (and oh dear, that's just too old to have babies) so I fudge and tell her we'll try in 2-3 years. Great. First my mom, now the mom in law. John doesn't want kids yet either. Whew. I know a few girls my age here in OK who are soooo ready to have a baby. They almost obsess over it. Nuh-uh. Not me. We don't have any desire now for any baby. I do hope we're ready in a few years. We do want kids. The longer we can wait, the better. I just hope that desire doesn't come when I'm 40.

I had a very nice long phone chat with a great friend today. We used to talk like this all the time when we were teens. As we got older we stopped talking as much. I missed it. Things got busy, there was always an excuse for not being able to call. It's very easy to pick up the phone, but when I call someone I have to give them my undivided attention. So I have to make sure I've done all my routines and there is nothing else going on to distract me. Can't have the computer on, can't have the TV on. Being clean and full is always nice too. There's not much going on here with me, so it's nice to hear what everyone else is doing. This blog had good intentions. It was gonna be a nice read, but john just turned on Suite Life on Deck. I'm distracted right now. will have to blog later

My sister Nancy is here to visit. Tonight we went to the Asian market (super Cao Nguyen) and made hotpot my way :) Now we're sitting here in the living room. All 3 of us. Nancy on her laptop, me on mines, and John on the floor playing games. Baxter is sleeping on my lap, Holly curled on the pillow next to me, and little Ralphie on the floor by my feet. I love my family :) We miss you Sandy!

Finally settled in the new house. Still getting used to it. Still can't believe John and I have a house. Now all I want to do is have all my family and friends over to break it in!

to the new year

Another year you made a promise
another chance to turn it all around
and do not save this for tomorow
embrace the past and you can live for now
and I will give the world to you

Speak louder that the words before you
and give them meaning no one else has found
The role we play is so important
we are the voices of the underground
and I would give the world to you

Say everything you’ve always wanted,
be not afraid of who you really are,
cause in the end we have each other,
and that's at least one thing worth living for,
and I would give the world to you

A million suns that shine upon me
A million eyes you are the brightest blue
Lets tear the walls down that divide us
and build a statue strong enough for two,

I pass it back to you
and I will beat for you,
cause I would give the world
and I would give the world
and I would give the world to you

This is the new year
A new begining
You made a promise
You are the brightest
We are the voices
This is the new year
We are the voices
This is the new year

song by: Ian Axel

It would be fun to make a music video like his.... featuring us :)