I resolve to...

It is only two days until the New Year. This year I have all kinds of goals. Here is a brief run down.


Work Goals:
-Become member of AAFP and read the entire journal monthly
-Renew ACLS
-Read that ER book

Family
-Date Night at least once per month
-Find regular baby sitter for Jordy for date night
-Take Jordy to playgroup whenever I am off work
-Menu planning so that we don't waste so much food

Financial
-Do Monthly Budget & meet it!
-Start saving for Jordy for college
-Increase savings for retirement
-Save “Enough” for down payment for house in Florida (not sure how much "enough" is)

Personal Enrichment
-Find masters program
-Start Masters program
-Stop Swearing!

Fitness
-Get Body Fat Measured
-Work out 3x per week
-Give up the fantasy that I will ever look like Giselle or Heidi Klum & love myself anyways!

Friends
-Call my friends and family regularly



While I am resolving to do all this stuff, let's just take a look back at my last years resolutions!


1. get back to my preprego weight of 140

2. exercise at least 5x per week

3. Read one book per month for fun

4. Complete my Senior Project and do that damned presentation I have been dreading

5.Pass the Family Medicine Boards

6.Read the Bible in it's Entirety

7. Learn about History so I don't feel like such a moron

8. Make sure that Joe and I have once a week date night

9.Read Swanson's Family Medicine Review book by June
10. Continue to be a nonsmoker

11. Scrapbook more


Well I haven't completed a few of them...I didn't read the Bible, learn History, and Joe and I are slacking a bit on the date night since moving to South Korea. But I did get down to my pre-prego weight, scrapbook a lot, read Swanson's, haven't touched a cigarette, read a ton of books, but I don't find out if I passed boards for another two weeks.

The Waste Report

Today, rather than telling you how much we wasted (which as usual was a considerable amount), I wanted to tell you what I saved!

Since I had a lot of turkey left over from Christmas dinner, plus drippings for broth- I decided to make soup!

In addition to the turkey we had left over noodles from spaghetti, cilantro from salsa, and celery too!

I mixed it all together, added some water and spices....then voila! Turkey soup!

Rather than throw away all that stuff, the soup provided us with at least one more meal! I feel so accomplished!

I love my Wii Fit

For Christmas Joe got me the Wii Fit, or actually my mother-in-law got it for me since she is the one who sent Joe the money. Thanks Aida!

Anyways, I love the thing. It has all kinds of fun "games" on it that are exercises in disguise. The balance games are really fun and you unlock more as you go, motivating you to keep going. The cardio section has running, and there is a cute running track that you go along. There is also a strength section and a yoga section. All of it is pretty good. Today I did 40 minutes of exercise and it felt like I was just playing the whole time- but I was actually sweaty and stinky too!

By far my favorite part of the Wii fit is the body fit test. It weighs you, yes the balance board is also a scale! Then it keeps track of it from day to day. It is motivating to see how your weight changes from day to day. One part I don't like about the Wii Fit is that it accused me of being a Wii Fit age of nearly 15 years older than I am, then gave me no instructions or recommendations on how to get younger!

Joe also got me another Wii fitness type game/exercise program. It is called My Fitness Coach. That one is really good too. It doesn't use the balance board, which is kind of good and bad. Not using it allows you to do all kinds of jumping and other cardio. The fitness test on this one is really good and has you do all kinds of exercises then recommends a program for you.

The workouts with the Fitness Coach can get a little boring as she doesn't put them into aerobic routines like a real workout program. She just does random aerobic moves; grapevine x2, then lunges, then step-touch...it gets kind of boring. Luckily though I usually have to dodge Jordy while I am trying to workout, so that does keep me on my toes!

Oh on the Wii Fit, Jordy seems to really enjoy the cartoon look of the people and the funny noises it makes. This allows me to exercise a tiny bit longer b/c he is entertained.

Since I failed so miserably at Operation Stork Attack, my goal to get in crazy good shape for Hawaii, I am hoping all this new fitness stuff will help me at least get in shape in time for Florida (hey I am being realistic!)

Jordy's new Hot Rod

Joe and I were talking about how when each of us was little we really wanted a Power Wheels, but never got one. Then we swore we would get Jordy one when he was old enough. But then we saw them and couldn't resist. I was worried that Jordy wouldn't be able to drive it, b/c well he is just a baby...but we found a guy on the side of the road-really the side of the road- selling these!

And the best part is that they are remote controlled! We just put Jordy in and drive him around. It is so much fun! We went for a walk yesterday and just drove him along side of us. He really seemed to enjoy it. He honks the horn and turns on and off the little blinkers!




Here is a picture of our entire fleet- my fancy new 1995 Kia that I found for a whopping 850 bucks, the CRV, and Jordy's new ride!



Today we couldn't take out the car because it is too cold- we actually got about 2" of snow. Finally I got to dress Jordan up in his little Weebok snow boots that light up when he walks. He didn't quite understand what the snow was and tried to eat the entire yard full of snow.

Another day...

Jordy one year ago!

Today was another day at work. Nothing much exciting happened. Nothing remarkable. It just kind of drug on and on.

It made me really want to get the hell out of this freezing cold country (although Omaha isn't any warmer). I am so excited to get to Florida. Everday I spend hours and hours looking at houses for sale on hotpads.com and get excited to have more than two outlets in my kitchen, have a garbage disposal, a washer AND a dryer, normal trash service... OOOHHH the day!

I miss my mom and dad. It was so nice seeing them in Hawaii. Jordy loved all the extra attention.

Christmas is in three days! I have given Joe most of his presents already, there isn't a lot left for him to open on Christmas. We did get Jordy a pretty cool gift, but I admit that it was mostly for us rather than him. I will post pics of it soon!

Joe has started tutoring people at my work. One of the nurses needed help with Organic Chemistry so he agreed to help her. Then people started coming out of the woodwork needing tutoring. Hopefully it will support his pretty serious video game habit! Additionally I am starting to really enjoy the Wii! So much fun! It is pretty addictive!

Parenting is NOT for the faint of heart

Today I was at work when I got a panicked call from Joe wondering if
he should come into the ER for evaluation.

Apparently there had been an incident at home.

Last night we had enchiladas with homemade salsa for dinner. Little
Jordykins really likes to eat tortilla chips just barely dipped in the
salsa. The only problem is he doesn't really understand how to hold
onto the chip. After a few nibbles, he crushes it in his hands. The
end result is tortilla chip crumbs sprinkled all around our house.

Jordy then likes to pick up the tortilla chips, suck on them until they
are soggy, then force feed them to either Joe or I. He is pretty
relentless in his forcefeeding. He will keep jamming it in your face
until you finally succumb to the soggy chip feeding.

Well, today Joe was watching tv and Jordy was eating one of the chips,
sucking the life out of it apparently. Then Jordy crawled up on the
couch next to Joe and began to force feed it to him. Since Joe was in
the middle of something on the tv, Laker game maybe?, he just opened
his mouth and welcomed the soggy chip....only it wasn't a chip.

Immediately Joe sensed it was something quite different.... POOP!

Jordy had somehow gotten a pebble of his poop, sucked on it till it was
good and mushy, then jammed it in Joe's mouth!

Joe immediately began spitting and wiping his mouth and shouting.

Jordy thought this was great and began smiling, laughing, and applauding in
earnest!

When I asked how Jordy was doing, Joe informed me that he had no idea
as he had been brushing his teeth for the last thirty minutes.

He checked on Jordy, and he was fine watching tv. Joe, however, will be
permanently traumatized.

I'm doing my part...

I keep hearing that the key to economic turn around is consumers. To support this goal I have bought several items in the past few weeks- okay, okay, I bought it all because I wanted it (please see previous post on my consumerism)

Video games have never really been that interesting to me until a few weeks ago when I heard about a game on the Wii. So while in Hawaii, I found the game and broke down and bought the Wii and all the accessories I needed. I love it! What is the game you ask? Well it is a little embarassing....it is All Star Cheer Squad! I love it! It is so much fun! My inner cheerleader is busting out! Tonight I made it through the tryouts, and yes I did make the squad!!

I was interested in the Wii Fit, but haven't been able to find a balance board here in Korea. I keep checking at the base, but no dice yet. Joe got me a similar game, it is the Personal Trainer. Tonight I did the first workout on it, and it was pretty good! It tracks your progress and adjusts to your fitness goals. Hopefully it will help me not become a flabby mess!

Speaking of flabby messes- I do remember my promise to post a sexy picture of myself in Hawaii...and plan to make good on that promise. I will post them as soon as my dad sends me the pics.

I'm Baaack...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

It has been a long time since I have written, and that must have been disappointing for my one regular reader (thanks Kameron!)

We are back from Hawaii, and yes I took boards. After taking it I really am worried if I passed or not. The entire test was more like Trivial Pursuit than a real exam. For several hours I sat staring at a computer screen answering random factoid questions about nothing of signifigance. I hope that I am not doing this again in July- although maybe we could work in another vacation in a fun place.

As for Hawaii- I was somewhat disappointed at the island. My testing site was on Oahu, so I didn’t have much of a choice there. People always rave about Hawaii so I had some pretty high expectations… but it wasn’t the paradise I had envisioned.
Coming from South Korea, Joe and I were pretty excited to see lots of stores, and Oahu did deliver in that regard. We went frequently to Best Buy and Walmart! One day we spent over 2 hours in traffic- a real surprise to us!

My parents and best friends flew out to see us, and it was great to see them. My mom was so anxious to see Jordy, and even watched him the entire night prior to my test so I could be well rested. It was so nice!

I didn’t get to spend quite as much time with Jenn and Adam as I would have liked, but didn’t want to bombard them with my company either! They were really interested in seeing every aspect of the island-which is hard to do with a child in tow. Frankly after that test, I was content to sit on my beach and watch Jordy play in the sand!
We did do quite a few fun things while in Hawaii. We saw huge waves at North Shore, played in the water, went to several really nice resteraunts, went to Best Buy and Walmart (which after Korea was heaven!), and my personal favorite was the submarine!
Right outside of our hotel there was an Atlantis submarine. I really wanted to go but didn’t want to spend the 95dollars per person to go. Finally Joe convinced me that I would regret it if we didn’t go. When we were paying we found out that they did a military discount! Half Price! So we went, and then later in the day, I went again with my dad! We saw so much stuff; 3 reef sharks, 7 sea turtles, countless fish, an eel- it was wonderful!

The trip back was rough. For some reason it only took 7 hours to get there, and over 10 to fly back. By the time we got home, I was exhausted. I thought I had the day of when we got back, but b/c of the date change I didn’t. So I had about 5 hours of sleep before I had to be at work. And of course it was a crazy busy day- I saw 25 patients!