threesixtyfive

I didn’t take this photo. But rainy days at the beach make me happy, and Ocean City makes me feel like I’m 15 again.

I’m not at the beach today. But it is raining. I’m pretty sure that’s the short end of the stick.

I’m not sure where to start to fill in the past four months. (Has it really been that long since I wrote one of my “daily” updates? What can I say? Life got very busy).  So, I’ll just start fresh with today. Christine threw me the most wonderful bridal shower on Sunday, and today has been spent writing out thank you cards (mostly stamped with pictures of a certain sweet little one-year-old). I hadn’t really thought about the shower too much beforehand, but on the ride there, I realized that I was about to see so many of the women who have been important in my life.  I can’t really describe how wonderful it was to have even a few minutes with each of those ladies. I could have spent hours chatting at every table, and when the three hours were up, I couldn’t believe how it flew by. I know wedding showers aren’t always the most entertaining events for the guests, but I never realized before this weekend how much they mean to the bride.  While everyone else was eating lunch and chatting (and, let’s be honest, maybe even wondering when they could head home), I got to go from table to table, talking with the aunts and counsins I’ve loved since I was a kid and the friends who’ve made my life so good for the past 15 years. It was a once in a lifetime thing.  It ranks as one of the best days I’ve had.

And now, back to cardiology and renal pathology and all the other things that should be getting much more of my attention than they are.

I had my midlife crisis at 25. And I’m fine with that. My life is so good. Whether or not it’s what I thought it would be, I can’t think of any significant way that it could be better. Still, sometimes I freak out over the big picture. I laugh to myself every time someone says they think I’m low-key. They have no idea that most nights I wake up somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes after I fall asleep, panicked about all the mistakes I’ve made, and all the things that aren’t going right in my life. Before I started med school, I would wake up with the crushing realization that if I was the kind of person I wanted to be, I would have already done all the things I kept saying I would do. I was absolutely convinced during those few half-awake minutes that I was never going to be a doctor. Usually I could reason myself out of this after a bit with the simple reminder that I’ve never felt more confident about my ability to do something well than I do about medicine. Other times I’d have to wake Culann up just to hear his voice for a few seconds. I guess it’s a measure of how much easier life is these days that my 10-minute wake up now usually has to do with the color of my bridesmaids’ dresses, or whether I’ve forgotten some tiny detail of a lecture. Now when Culann asks me what’s wrong, I can usually just smile and fall back asleep.

Steve and Amanda seriously saved our holidays. They had us over for Christmas brunch, and then again for New Year’s Eve. If it wasn’t for them, we would have been home by ourselves for the whole holiday. Well, let’s correct that, Culann would have been at work and I would have been home by myself.

Mike and Dana joined us for New Year’s Eve, and we had a great night full of Apples to Apples, champagne, wine, 18 pounds of taco dip, and a late night round of Dirty Words that was for some reason the funniest thing I had ever heard. Yup, I have the sense of humor of an 8 year old.

I must have missed seeing the Xmas crackers under the tree on Xmas Eve, so we had a late celebration, crowns and all.

Cleveland Heights is amazing. Well, Cleveland Heights and the surrounding towns, I guess. I imagine it’s the kind of thing that you don’t even notice if you grew up here, but this area is packed with amazing old homes and buildings. Most of the homes in Cleveland Heights were built between 1920 and 1929, and they have such amazing details and gorgeous architecture. Today as I was driving down a part of Mayfield that I’m not usually on, out by Lindhurst, I noticed the library, which was at one point a private home, and I had to stop. It’s just beautiful.

I don’t even want to think about the heating bill.

Our dinner:

And the goldies’ dinner:

On my way back from Jersey, I stopped to see Smithville Park again, to try to figure out where we’ll have our wedding ceremony. In my illogical mind, I picture us getting married in the woods, down a hiking trail in a little clearing. You know, a little clearing that fits 200 people and chairs.

This was the best day I’ve had in a while. I started out helping Christine clean out her office. After 10 years in the same office, my parents’ company is moving. Most of what they do can be done without an office, and Christine can work from home. So, 10 years of files, computers, coffee machines have to be packed up. I have a strange sort of nostalgia for this office. I spent a summer in college doing some small projects for my parents, and when I think of visiting Christine over the past 10 years, a lot of my memories start with meeting her here. I’ll miss the office, in a strange way.

When we had finished moving boxes, I continued to disrupt Christine’s plans for the day by suggesting that we meet Mom for drinks before dinner with Dad and Tony.

Once we got back from dinner, my parents and I stayed up until almost 2:00 chatting, even though they both had to go to work the next day. It was so sweet – at around midnight, they said they really should get to bed, but they didn’t. Then they said it again at 1:00, and finally around 2, they headed up. I had forgotten how nice it is to just talk to them.

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with my parents while Culann was in town, and then I spent the next two days with them before driving back home for Xmas Eve.

Dinner at my parents’ house:

My best imitation of “Dad pose.” Heh heh heh. Check out the death stare he’s giving me in the background.

I used to help my Dad every year, the weekend after Thanksgiving, to put up the Christmas lights. Inevitably, we waited for the day when it rained to get started. I’m glad to see he has kept up the tradition.