State of Affairs

Well, time to recap what I've been doing, what I want to be doing, since life is changing significantly currently.  I suppose I should change my username from "Eventual Doctor" to Doctor, now that I'm going out on my own out of residency.  Or just a different name.  Meh. I'll decide that later!  At any rate, just finished moving away from my place of training to a different apartment, from which I will be moving again in a month - hearing back from three places I interviewed at next week, antsy to get my offers!  I sure hope I get some!  There's certainly one I have in mind...

At any rate, the list of endeavors...

Cocktails is an easy one - just made a modified Cucumber - Vodka tonic yesterday - St. Germain, Cucumber juice (fresh made), vodka, tonic water, lime juice and ice with a sprig of mint and a cucumber garnish.  Apologies, as I started drinking it before I thought to document it.  I make drinks so often, documentation is the least of my concerns - but I'll try to post the cooler ones.

Gardening - was going well up until the move.  Right after getting my plants down here, including the blackberry with lots of almost ripe berries on it (see below), the berries' skin got slimy and then they withered all in a matter of hours.  I was afraid at first it was a mold or plant disease, but eventually deduced that they suffered from sunburn... it's pretty hot, dry, and sunny lately.  I have to water my mint every day or the leaves start wilting.  They may be fairly heat-loving plants, but... even blackberries have a limit

Computer Games - finally getting a little caught up.  Fallout 4 has been fairly glitchy still, made some headway on my second run through of Wolfenstein New Order - after I finish that I'll purchase the DLC.  Working on Alien: Isolation as well, still fighting people at this point.  I got the Southpark Stick of Truth game on a Steam sale, so looking to have fun with that shortly as well.  Plenty of other things on my to-do list (SC2 Legacy of the Void, Tomb Raider reboot, Metro 2033, Machine for Pigs...), the most anticipated new games for me will be Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Dishonored 2.  August is when Deus Ex gets released!

Halloween - I haven't really gotten started on it yet, but I was planning on doing a semi-punky Cleopatra.  More to come on that.

Great Books - It's been going well, read through a few books that I'd had for a long time and meant to read - The Ghost Map: The Story of Londo's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World; The Alice Behind Wonderland; Ants at Work: How an Insect Society is Organized; Moby Dick; or, The Whale (audiobook); For Whom the Bell Tolls.  Currently working on Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and gradually working my way through History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day.  This has essentially replaced my "country readings" of wikipedia pages - I want to refresh my mind on the major global events before narrowing again.  There are several others sitting in my backpack that are technically 'in progress' but I haven't avidly worked on.  

         

Holidays - Beltane didn't have much fanfare - made a May Bowl with sparkling wine, some leftover mead, fruit, and infused it with Sweet Woodruff loose leaf tea.  Tried making a Bannock, but it was not particularly tasty - I think I'll need to come up with my own style of Bannock after doing some research about the types in Scandinavia, Canada, and the UK.  Midsummer / Litha - it was too hot and I had an interview all day that day, so...didn't get to do much, will fix that next year!  

The next one coming up is Lammas, the first harvest, August 1st.  Plenty of time to prepare!  Some notes I have from research on the topic - it is one of the halfway points between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox, and typically is a time to celebrate the harvest and plenty.  Some food ideas include: root vegetables, fresh herbs, barley mushroom soup, roasted garlic corn, colcannon, basil pesto, buttered chicken, blackberry cobbler, loaf of lammas bread, latch of lunastain cakes;  Activities often involve corn husk crafts, making dolls, chains;  Grapes and wine, fresh baked bread, early fall foods (pumpkin, squash) and late summer foods (apples, plums, peaches), possibly corn soup or chowder would be a good option or cornbread.

Languages - After going to England, I lost my Spanish and German streaks on Duolingo, very sad, was at over 183 days.  I did restart and my Spanish tree is almost all gold again - so fingers crossed I can keep it up.  I'm hoping to work on my Medical Spanish book a bit since I want to maintain my competency...

Wine and Cheese - Ongoing, we have a few we stick to.  Probably going to make a cheese plate right after this post actually!  Weekend in Napa next week actually - almost forgot about that!

Random Recipes - I want to branch out more now that I have a stocked kitchen and someone to cook for/with.  Working on my next project... I've had a lot of fun with zoodles, but my other half doesn't care much for them.  Oh well!  Here are a bunch of recipes for zoodles at least, some of which I may try soon - I have two zucchinis waiting to be used in the fridge.

Violin - Previously I had been planning to work on piano, but I picked up the violin and have been doing that for a year and a half and I plan to work on getting as good at that as I can - working on my deliberate practice and techniques.  I was getting better pretty quickly in the beginning but I've somewhat plateaued so I need to find my next teacher or work more on my lesson books.  I had to take a hiatus because the last two months have been INSANE.

Writing - I'm > 50k words into my Mars Terraforming dystopia - still have to keep working on it, I need to get back into "that" mood before I can, and so much is going on right now... of my stories it's got the best potential for being a true novel.  Just gotta keep going on it, but for now, it's somewhat on hold.

Medical Knowledge Maintenance - That'd be my day job - keeping up to date on things, reading the latest articles and studies and reinforcing / re-learning things about certain medications.  I've got the latest American Family Physician journal sitting to my left, I'll probably read it later this weekend.  I got through all the AFP podcasts and definitely found several kernels of awesome in there, but they're so fast paced I need to listen again.  My 45-55 minute commutes into Sacramento will probably be useful for that...

In terms of other things I had been working on and were featured here:

- Haute Cuisine - I am going to defer to my hubby for this one, for now.  I will still foray into there, and we recently ate at a haute cuisine restaurant (La Folie) for our 10th Dateaversary, and will be going to a multi-course haute cuisine Japanese lunch in Napa next Sunday, so we are certainly enjoying haute cuisine, if not making it.  Will update when we have something good!

- Pampering - got some spa gift cards as a graduation gift from my mom - not too interested in broadcasting my pampering ideas, just not exciting enough (it's supposed to be relaxing!) so I'm going to retire this one along with piano, country readings, and bloodlust.

- Self-Improvement - everything listed above is in a way self-improvement, though I haven't been exercising as regularly lately.  Sigh.  That's on my to-do list.

- Media Manipulation - haven't made any new images or videos lately, but not saying I won't in the future!  Still have to work on the Lord of the Fries!

- Gothic Inclinations - that'll stay in the closet for now, and be let out on special occasions...

- Future Planning - also known as adulting?  I've done so much of that lately I'm sick of it...

Hm... is that it?  I may need to include some medical things from time to time since I retired the medical blog not long ago... but oh well.