happy earth day!

What a whirlwind of a week. Long day Monday, then a smooth trip home on Tuesday, where I was greeted at the Humphrey Terminal by Clay and his beautiful bouquet of flowers. Despite two early mornings (5 am CDT/3 am PDT), it was so great to see Mom, Dad, Ben and Clay. The interview itself, for the Fairview/

Institute for Athletic Medicine Sports PT Residency, was awfully stressful but it was a good learning experience. Though it was hard to say goodbye a whole 32 hours after I arrived, knowing Clay will be landing in Seattle this Friday made my departure was just a little easier. 

(FYI: In honor of Earth Day, in addition to my extra Earthy photos, everything in BLUE is a link.)

Point Defiance

Albeit, life here is slightly less interesting and more solitary than life at home. Here's how I've spent the weekend:

- Eating a lot of taco chicken chili. (Yum. But I easily have 10 meals worth...so slightly less yum.)

- Running around Point Defiance-- but I guess I didn't do a very good job of staying on Five Mile Road because I only ran 3?

- Catching playoff hockey on NBC... at 10am (Giroux! 14 points. Flyers are going far. And WHO is this Holbty guy?)

- Spending quality time with my boards review book. (I won't bore you with details.) 

- Listening to my awesome Basilica Block Party 2012 playlist on Spotify (Train, Mat Kearney, Avett Brothers, OAR, The Head and the Heart, Fitz and the Tantrums, Tyrone Wells and Imagine Dragons...)

- Wasting time on my new fav website: Greatist. Addicting. It tells me that St. Olaf, Bowdoin and U-Pitt (where Ben starts this fall) are amongst the nation's top 25 healthiest colleges!

- Drinking sparkling lemonade, my weekend treat from Trader Joe's, out of my German beer stein.

How convenient-- my top 2 played artists in the past 6 months are BOTH at Basilica!

As I get ready to face the work week, the countdown continues: t-5 days till Clay lands! Fun fact: my CI's birthday is next weekend, so we both get next Monday off-- meaning we can take our time as we venture back from our weekend in Seaside, Oregon. Woo! 

Last but not least, a bon voyage shoutout to Ben, as he tackles manual farm labor and conquers swing dancing competitions living in France over the course of the next three months. Safe travels, bro!

soak up the sun

Another week down in the clinic-- hard to believe I've already been here 3 weeks, and have been away from home nearly a month. Life at MVP is pretty good. I'm learning lots from my CI, and see an average of 8-10 patients a day. My current favorite patient is a 90-year old man recovering (quite well, I must say) from a hip replacement. Despite the fact that we communicate solely through an interpreter, we get along quite well. I've seen loads of shoulder patients so far, am becoming more comfortable with the neck, and even have a high schooler with chronic regional pain syndrome, the most bizarre diagnosis I've seen in an orthopedic setting yet. 

can you spot the only hockey memorabilia in the clinic? (at least it's a signed Miracle On Ice photo!)

Considering many Tacomites are employed by Boeing or JBLM (Joint Base Lewis McChord), a huge Air Force base, we see quite a few vets, and kids of military men who incessantly call me "ma'am," regardless of how many times I ask them to call me by my first name. MVP also plays host to future PTs, PTAs and ATs who are looking to boost the volunteer hour numbers on their grad school applications. Pretty cool to be followed around and to field PT questions-- I love teaching!

We've been blessed with sunshine most of this week and weekend, which resulted in several lunchtime runs through Lakewood. I maintain that the best way to really see a city is to run though it-- that's how I got to know Brunswick, Northfield and Rockford. During the rare rainy days this week, I was introduced to "sucker holes," as they're lovingly called, which refer to temporary breaks in the clouds which suddenly turn back to rain. Thought it was going to be a sunny day after all? Sucker! One day, it was sunny on one side of the building, and around the corner, it was pouring. I rest my case. 

As for this weekend- I've ventured back into the kitchen, where I've spent little time since living in Rockford. Alas, I'm taking a hiatus today, as I no longer have any A) free Tupperware, or B) room in the fridge. Between Friday and Saturday, I whipped up: 

-a thai shrimp spinach wrap with zucchini (my own creation, nice and zesty)

-baked apple cinnamon chips (so dang easy, and just as healthy-- delicious)

-sweet barbecue crock pot chicken (my #1 favorite recipe, maybe ever)

-no bake energy bites (quick energy, perfect for when I'm en route to the gym)

-coconut-crusted French toast (not my best meal yet)

-quinoa mac and cheese (the ONLY way I'll eat quinoa from now on--awesome)

quinoa mac & cheese, with leftover bbq chicken

I couldn't be more excited for this week, well until next week, that is (when Clay visits for 11 days!, and we head to the ocean!). 12 hours in the clinic Monday, then on Tuesday, 1) I will be officially 8 weeks post-op (with full ROM, and rapidly improving strength :), 2) Train's latest release, California 37, will be music to my ears en route to... 3) sweet home Minnesota! I fly out that evening for a brief 30-some hour trip back to the midwest.

Let's hope the next few days fly by so I can fly home. In his words, only one more edition of the Monti Times before my sports writing beau picks me up from MSP. See you soon, MN!

elevation

EL-EV-AT-ION

high, higher than the sun

you shoot me from a gun

i need you to elevate me here

at the corner of your lips

as the orbit of your hips

eclipse, you elevate my soul

[~U2]

Hoppy Easter! (So says my part-time Easter bunny bf...read this and you'll know what I'm talking about.) I was lucky enough to be able to spend the weekend in Richland with Brad and Kim, Laura and her hockey-playing BFF Sam. Getting off work at 11am on Fridays was especially nice this week, so I could start the 240-mile drive through the mountains and through Washington's wine country. 

Arriving before the Sawatzkes returned home that afternoon (they had ventured off to a Bavarian mountain town for the day), I had a sudden urge to run up a mountain. Considering this was probably a once-in-a-lifetime feeling, I decided to act on it. Conveniently, the Badger Mountain trailhead was a quarter of a mile from their house. Garmin, shades, iPod and sparkly white (which needed to change) running shoes donned, I started to run up the mountain. Less than a minute later, I realized how unrealistic of a goal that was, given the fact that I'd run a total of 5 times since my surgery, hadn't run outside since last fall, and had never run up a mountain. Too stubborn to quit just yet, I turned my uphill jog into five 45-second "hill" sprints, bringing back the glory days of Ole hockey captain's practices at Thorson Hill. Needless to say, I no longer had the urge to run up a mountain. Problem solved. (New problem: my legs were crying.)

The rest of the weekend was significantly more successful, as we visited Terra Blanca winery that night, where I've pretty much decided I want to get married, or at least go to a wedding one day. O.M.G.Gorgeous. Though it was too chilly to eat our flatbreads and enjoy our wine (for me, a deliciously sweet '05 Chenin Blanc Ice wine) outside, we certainly got some pics with the sunset as our backdrop. Saturday, we decorated dozens of Easter eggs with some of the Sawatzkes' Richland friends, in what had to be the most extensive and elaborate decorating effort I've ever been a part of-- I'm talking silk, stamps, toothbrushes and  acrylic paint, in addition to the traditional dyes. That night, we had Brad's boss and his wife over for Kim's chicken saltimboca, perhaps my new favorite dish, after which Sam, Laura and I decided to hike partway up Badger in an effort to see the full moon (which we couldn't...because it was cloudy...which apparently we didn't think to check before we left). 

This morning, we celebrated Easter morning by hunting for our baskets-- lucky me, I got two! My absolute faaaavorite late harvest Sauvignon Blanc from Bookwalter Winery from Brad and Kim (plus lots of candy, and of course, nail polish), and a selection of my favorite guilty pleasures from Clay because he's only the most thoughtful person I know (caffeinated Crystal Light, Hot Tomales, Peeps, Sour Patch Kids, and Reese's bunnies). We headed to the First Lutheran Church of Kennewick for a 10:30 service, complete with a choir that sounded like they belonged in the Duomo in Milan-- bravo. After Kim took us on a drive next to the Columbia River and we devoured a late morning breakfast courtesy of Brad, we participated in an egg hunt put on by more Richland friends. Very reluctantly, I headed back to Tacoma in the early afternoon. This was the first Easter I spent away from my family-- freshman year of college, Dad and Ben visited me in Maine and Mom and I celebrated on a cruise ship a few years later-- and though I missed our traditions in Minnesota (including Grandma's incredible Easter brunch), it's always fun to try something new, and it was a blessing that although I was halfway across the country, I was able to spend the holiday with what's turned into my second family. 

In an effort to make me feel a little better for having to leave such a beautiful city (I semi-like Tacoma, I really like Seattle, but I LOVE Richland), the sun followed me home and the drive couldn't have been smoother. Podcasts helped me pass the time during the first half of the drive through wine country, while I drove through the mountains jamming to "Drunk on You" on repeat, dreaming of summer and lazy days on the lake. Though it was annoying at first, Washington is smart to outlaw cell phones while driving because some of those passes require two hands on the wheel and lots of concentration on the curves of the road. Nothing like signs that say "ROCKS" and ever-changing computerized speed limit signs to keep you focused on the road. 

For my next entry, I promise to write more about the whole reason I started this blog in the first place: school (including the presentation idea that I'm hoping will land me my top pick of sports residency programs...), but right now I'm on too much of an Easter/chocolate bunny/sugar high to think about work. And as I sit facing the mountains of candy I brought home, I find myself looking forward to my workouts this week, though at the same time wondering if they'll do me any good. Time for a Skype date with Clayton... Night, all!