About a week until Christmas. I am so excited! It's a little sad being here during this time. Kind of lonely. Christmas has always been such a large and important holiday to me and my family. Not so much with John's. But that's okay. I've been listening to those sappy Christmas only radio stations in my car and at work. My assistant has gotten so sick of it she had to change it back to her country station. That's when I brought in my own radio to listen in my office! Although I can understand how "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Winter Wonderland" can get annoying. Besides the music, I'm also baking pumpkin bread. This is another tradition I liked doing. My sisters, mom, and I would bake cookies and other goodies more so around this time of year than at any other time. The entire house would smell delicious. Since John is out and it's 10pm Thursday night, I decided to go ahead and blast the music, turn on our Christmas lights, and bake!! Those short periods of time when I'm home by myself is nice. I like it. It's quite and peaceful, just me and I can do whatever I want. And tonight, I turned off the TV, logged off facebook, turned up the music, lights, and oven and got a' bakin!

Drug Reps

They're great! They come by, visit you in the office and are uber nice to you. Give you free brochures and samples. (they used to give us goodies like pens and post-its). Then on top of all that, they take you to fabulous steak houses where you order appetizers, salad, wine, 10z steaks topped with crab meat, and dessert. Okay, so if I ever go to places like that on my own, it's more like "I'll have the chicken, to drink, water, no salad, no appetizer, no dessert... thank you, sir". This really is a perk. So if any of you are looking for a job where you go and smooch in doctors offices and are given a ridiculously large amount of money to take your clients out to fancy dinners, this may be the job for you

Good music can make it all better. Blast it

It's Friday night. I'm 26. Not married. No kids. Why am I at home?

Dave & Lisa's Wedding

Another wedding. This one, one of John's best friend. I've always been to weddings of older cousins and acquaintances, but Dave and Lisa is probably one of the first of our friends to get married. It was a bit strange to see them dressed up and doing something so "grown up". Marriage, omg. The wedding was in Roslyn, Long Island. It was nice to be back on the East Coast. I miss it soo much. John and I manage to find sometime to explore the town. A historic town with boutiques and rich, dyed-blondes, skinny 40 somethings shopping with their latte's in one hand and a maltipoo in the other. I found a vintage designer shop selling LV, Jimmy Choos, Chanel, etc etc. Very cool since these are the types of places you read about but I've never been able to find a real one. John and I shopped around, unacknowledged (hehe.. I prefer it to be this way).
One of the best things about this trip was meeting both the bride and groom's family. Everyone was so nice. I love seeing people with their families. You get to see the other side of them that you don't get to see when they're hanging out with you. And now John and I are back in Oklahoma City, doing the laundry and dishes we should have done before leaving on our trip.. I wish I had a mommy around to help me with this stuff ;)


Catholic Church ceremony


John and Bridesmaids

Mr. & Mrs. David Maher

Me, Dave, John


The lucky fella who caught the garter


Tim, Cat (dave's sister) John


Lisa has this thing about zebra stripes.


Wedding party





Roslyn, Long Island

Roslyn, Long Island

Doggie chillin in tailor shop window


The cool shops




Bakery heaven





We did get a chocolate mousse pie. But I wanted everything

Job posting

I got an email today from a job seeker website I signed up for a few months back before moving to Oklahoma to help me look for jobs. I'm still getting emails from them once in a while with some interesting positions. But this one today really sparked my interest. After going through midwifery school I was undecided about what I would do about work. I enjoyed the births a lot, but hated the hours, the stress, and unpredictability of it. So I thought, lets work in a clinic where it'll be 9-5, no weekends, no holidays, no on-call, no fear of being sued up the ass because your baby was born with a slightly lop sided head. And so this is where I decided to go. I'm now working in a clinic that sees no pregnant patients at all. I really enjoy what I do now, but, I know I could be doing a lot more. I was trained for more than this. I am, dare I say it, over qualified (tooting my own horn!). It's a great job for a newbie like me, but already, I can see that in a year or so I'll get bored. Anyway, back to the email. It was job posting for a midwife in a birthing center in San Diego. I've always wanted to work in a birthing center, and if I would have stayed in Maryland, I just might be working at the one in Annapolis right now. After visiting the website of this particular birthing center, I realized that I do miss the births. No matter how nervous it made me or how tiring and frustrating it can sometimes be, the reward in the end is worth it. So maybe I will go back to delivering those babies again. I really do hope so :)

Football Sunday.. and oh wait Monday.. and soon Thursday?!

In the beginning I thought football ruined everything. "You don't want to go out on this beautiful Sunday b/c of what?!?!?" John would be glued to the couch and the TV Sundays and Monday night. And me, well, fine, if you don't want to go I'll go by myself! But now, after watching a few games with him, football actually is pretty fun to watch if you know what's going on. And I've been watching it with John for the past couple weeks. And we totally get in to it. Makes me think of last Super Bowl at Thuy's. But still, I'd rather spend my Sunday's out of the house.

I've gotten pretty much situated here in Oklahoma. Thought I would meet new people pretty easily, but still, it's basically just me and John. My coworkers are all great. But at the clinic it's always me and the assistant. And everyone's got families and lives of their own, so kind of makes it hard to go out after work if they've got to get home to a husband and crying babies :( John's more than adjusting to his work place. He's thriving. His office is beautiful. Beautiful! and they've got an awesome game room with Wii, foosball table, and flat screen TVs. There's even a nap room. It's a young team located in a college town, thus most of the employees are 20 somethings, single, smart, college educated. They're more than just coworkers, these guys are friends. I've met them. Hung out with them. It was awkward. They've got their own inside jokes, and talk about work most of the time. I am a total outsider. The fifth wheel. But I come because John's asks me to come. I know he feels bad that he's made friends and I haven't. After a few times of going out with his team, I got bored. I didn't even want to make and effort to fit in anymore. The truth is, I'm not stressing over the fact that I don't get along with them. Of course I miss going out with friends, but at this point, I'm doing ok with it just being me and John... and Holly. I've been searching for clubs to join or volunteer work to do to keep things interesting. But no motivation, yet. Yet.

Norman

John and I went to the college town of Norman a few weekends ago when the weather was nice. There's a Main Street lined with antique shops, cafes, and outdoor eateries. Very cute. I love these kinds of places and what a surprise it was to find one in Oklahoma. John and I started the day eating pizza on a balcony (sounds fancy schmancy, huh?) Then we roamed around the area, circling it probably twice since it was small then ended up getting bubble tea. Being in a pretty place made me feel pretty too :) The way the shops are decorated and how the merchandise is displayed makes each store so unique. Why aren't there more places like this? And why wasn't there a cupcake shop there? Every other trendy little shopping street has one. Makes me want to open up my own little cupcake shop. I'm not a big baker, but it'd be wonderful to decorate a bakery. I'll decorate and make the place look cute, and I'll have Phi slave in the back baking cupcake after cupcake.

I'm going to try to post more pictures of Oklahoma so people don't think I'm living out in the prairie or the plains!

Lunch break at Panera! Being here reminds me of all those times I spent in New Hampshire. My day was literally: Clincals-gym-Panera-sleep-repeat. This is where I spent a lot of my time while up there. It's a great place to study. Tee hee, I feel smart here, eating my pasta and soup in my green scrubs!

Lazy Sunday

There are a ton of things I could be doing today. I told my co-workers that I would participate in the Oklahoma City AIDS walk. It looks like fun. There's free food, and it's for a good cause. Ah, but it's cold and dark outside and Holly's lying right next to me here tucked under our warm blanket. I want to go and meet new people and visit the city, but I've got no motivation now. There's the antique fair and the farmer's market that I'd like to check out. Since planning for the wedding, I've been obsessed with all things vintage. Hopefully I could find some inspiration at both these places. But then again, I won't miss the fair if I don't go today since it'll come around again in 2 weeks. And the huge farmer's market is open 7 days a week. Lazy. Let's lounge here with the laptop and watch Andrew Zimmern Bizarre Foods re-runs. I love that guy.

Lyn & Eric's Wedding

I was really excited to see John's family again, especially his brother, sister-in-law, and cousins from Rhode Island. We hardly ever get to see each other, but when we do, we always have so much fun. I love seeing John and his cousins together. Unlike my family, his cousins are almost all boys, and even though I never knew what any of them were like growing up, they still tell me about all the stupid things they used to do. It reminds me of my family, except us girls were not half as bad. I am happy to know that John has that; that this is what I will be a part of soon. I really do love his family.

All in all, the wedding was beautiful. A small outdoor ceremony followed by a night reception at Clydes in Tysons. Nothing fancy, nothing loud. Just a group of family and friends celebrating together. This made us think of what our wedding will be like. We both think our families and friends will hit it off. I know we will! I get excited just thinking about how wonderful it would be! There's nothing else I want to say about the wedding, so, enjoy some of the photos:


Reception was in Rockville. (to all the girls: Spanx! of course I had no room to eat anything that night!)

Groom and parents


Vincent escorting his grandma


Lyn and her family

The lovely bride


Lyn & Eric


Bride's Family



Courtney (cousin), Bich (sister-in law), Amy (the Almighty)




John and his "Brothers for life!!" *sigh*

Slow work day

I was home this past weekend for a grand total of 30 hours :(

It was a beautiful weekend in MD. Home was still home except it was cleaner... 'did I have anything to do with that??'. Ralphie was less scruffy. My sisters and Phi are all of a sudden expert Cooking Mamas baking pies and crisps and rolling sushi. The tall fence in the back now covers the yard so you cannot see in to it from the road. Of course the pool is long gone and in its place hay and baby grass. And my dad's eyes are a wee bit bigger. It's already been 3 months since I've moved and things have already changed. I probably wouldn't have noticed much of it if I were still living in MD, but being away made me realize how fast little things can change.
Now back in Oklahoma. Currently at work blogging-- made possible by stealing someone's WiFi. I'm here til 4pm today and it's 1:30pm... haven't seen a single patient yet :) I'm not complaining. More to come about my weekend back in MD with pictures from John's cousin's wedding.

OK State Fair

This is a big deal here in Oklahoma. Big rides, lots of food, a car show, petting zoos, arts, crafts, games. Boys to Men were even there last Friday. I was there for the food. The roasted corn, fried oreos, and indian tacos were on my list. I ended up disappointed. Everything was battered, deep fried, dipped in butter, and jammed on a stick. Even after all that, the food was still just mediocre. Here are a few pictures:


Biggest Corn dog I've ever seen. And massive curly fries.


On A Stick:



They even had manicotti on a stick. Imagine this on a stick.

I miss you all. Just wanted to let you know

Bun Thit Nuong made by me

I was craving bun thit nuong yesterday. "Should I go out, spend 7 bucks and about 45 min of my time to get it? Or should I drive down to the Saigon Taipei (or whatever its called) buy the ingredients and go home and spend 2 hours experimenting with no guarantee that what I make will be edible?" Hmm.. let's experiment!

Step 1: prepare the ingredients. (looks like I'm off to a good start)


Step 2: Mix it all up. (I know you're feelin' my bright red bowl)


Step 3: Sizzle Sizzle



It looks and smells like thit nuong. AND it even TASTES like it's supposed to! This is proud moment for me, as some of you know, I am far from your domestic goddess. So what if it didn't taste exactly like my dads or Co Nga's. This little bowl was just enough to satisfy my craving. John was happy too, saying my "inner FOB" came through.