Life Lately: Falling in Love with Cacti

 

Excuse the lack in updates recently. I took my first vacation EVER since I've started working to finally visit the boyfriend before he finishes his current residency in Arizona. I spent a week there and it was really enjoyable considering that I've never had the desire to take a trip to AZ before. I think this was also my first time this whole year wearing denim. I don't know if this is sad or not. (Just shows how much time I spend in clinic-attire and scrubs). Since I actually tried to do something every day that I was there I'll just break down a few highlights below. 

• FOOD. Oh man, the one thing that I made sure to plan was to have places I wanted to eat squared away. Of course we had delicious Mexican food almost everyday. I'm still dreaming about the BBQ pork tacos and esquites we had for dinner one evening...
• On top of food places, I also bookmarked a couple coffee places I wanted to check out as well (seeing that the boba options are non-existent there). Even though the area that the BF lives in isn't one of the major cities, they have a better selection of coffee joints than I do! (Though you really have to drive everywhere and from where he lives everything is at least a good 15 minutes away). The photo in the top right corner and the bottom left corner are both from the same place aka hands down the best cup of coffee out of all the ones I tried there. It probably helps that they use Blue Bottle too and the atmosphere was very San Francisco-y. 
• So Arizona is also HOT, HOT, HOT. Though I shouldn't be complaining since I heard it's way worse in the summer. Even on days we weren't doing anything in particular (besides going around to different places to eat) we would be drained mid day due to the heat. It was pretty nice being able to walk around at 8/9pm with just a dress on though. 
• Despite the heat, we managed to go visit the zoo, go up to Gates Pass to see the amazing sunset, check out the caverns at the national park, and check out the gorgeous campus at the nearby university. 
• All in all, I had a great trip and fell so in love with all the cacti there that I decided to bring one home with me. I don't know how great I am with plants (even ones that don't need that much TLC) but we'll see how it goes. It did state on the packaging that it would grow within 3-10 days and it's reaching that mark with no sign of life...

Life Lately: Don't Stop Me Now

1. I've been trying to be better about using my planner since I obsessed over it until I could get my hands on it. (It's the Weekly edition of the Simplified Planner by Emily Ley. Thinking of potentially doing a review on it after I've used it more and before she comes out with her 2016 version later this year). I've also been back to making my own iced milk teas now that a)the weather is warming up and b)I'm trying to spend a little less at boba places. (Key word: little).
2. My dad went to Seattle recently to show his high school friend from Korea around when he was in California to visit. Of course they went to the iconic first ever Starbucks and got me this mug. I've been keeping it at the surgery office since I can always boil up some hot water and make some tea when I need a pick me up.
3. I finally used the reusable bag that came with my Giles Eek hat (see my post here for more info). It's a little hard to tell in the photo but I ended up buying the same hat in two different colors. (I'm actually wearing the black one in my most recent Instagram photo). I just realized now that if I had bought it online I could have gotten 10% off the second one...*sad face* But I'm picky about hats so I'm glad I got to try them out in person.
4. One of our previous surgery patients was so sweet and dropped by a few days after with the biggest plate of homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I took a few home and I've finished them off already. (What diet?). I've also started a new book, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters which apparently I've had on hold. I usually go through books pretty fast and a lot had already happened in the story line when I realized that I was actually only 35% through the book! If you're a Goodreads user check out other books I've recently finished here.

Life Lately

My friend's corgi is the cutest! I just can't with the slicked back ears. In all honesty I was never that into corgis until recently when my boyfriend and I were discussing potential pet options in the future. We were hanging out with my "nephew" on a rare Saturday I had off when these photos were taken. Not gonna lie I definitely miss having weekends like normal people.

In other news, it is now day three on the 21-day no sweetened beverage challenge I'm doing. And so far so good surprisingly. I thought Monday would be harder since I work, but it wasn't too bad. I just started my day off with an unsweetened iced tea and I was good to go. (Though I was enviously looking at the boba drinks a few of the students that were checking in were carrying). It was actually a little bit harder on my days off, especially since the fridge was recently stocked with an iced coffee brand I really like. I almost gave in during my study session, but fought against it. While I do love my drinks I'm the type of person who hates to lose. Guess that's working in my favor!

Tomorrow will be the only "slow" surgery day we've had all year. Even though I'll be doing pretty much everything besides assisting, I'll have to go in early to set up the trays. Luckily we only have two patients (when we normally have around 13), so hopefully it'll go smoothly.

I'm pretty excited for the week to be over with since I've actually got fun things planned for the weekend (another rare real weekend). Some of my friends are super excited about the premiere of Fifty Shades (I've read the book...wasn't a fan. Only finished it because I can't stand leaving books unfinished). This will probably be the only time where I'll prefer the movie over the book, but we'll see. I'm also planning to watch Kingsman, a movie I've been looking forward to ever since I've seen the trailer. I don't really watch too many movies in theaters ever since my boyfriend went out of state for his residency. He'll be coming back for the long weekend though so we'll finally be able to spend some quality time together aka eating and watching movies.