Here's to self-care...and sanity.

Today marks the last day of my 3rd practicum in graduate school.
It is so strange to devote your time/sanity/effort into something for what feels like forever, and then to reach the point where you walk out, and just never return.
I felt a lot more attached to the residents there than I have with previous clients. I think given the setting, and the type of work we were doing it makes it that much more difficult to end the relationships. Therapy is such a funny profession too, because you're basically not allowed to have contact with any of them once you leave, its like you just have to disappear.
I know I won't just disappear, I know that I've made an impact on some of those women that will not be forgotten, and I feel similar about the roles they have played in my training.
It's just a strange feeling I'm sitting with right now.
I left, took the same route home I always do, let the dog out, and am sitting on my couch as I do most days after work. But I won't be going back next week, running my groups, meeting with residents, having supervision. It all just ended... and yet nothing feels different, except that it does.
There don't seem to be words to explain the feeling.
I had a moment on the drive home where I felt guilty for leaving. I chose my "end date" for this practicum. I started there in August, and really could have stayed on a while longer because I already started my new practicum in April, so I've been doing double time and I've been surviving. That is just it though, I've been surviving. I've been feeling overworked, stressed, at times miserable, and completely zapped of energy. I feel guilty though leaving those women when I really didn't have to, but chose to because it was beneficial for me to end when I did, for my own sanity. Self-Care they call it in my field.
I thought I'd have more to say about this day, but as I sit here I just feel brain-dead and zoned out.
I still have my other practicum tomorrow but J and I are going camping this weekend. I am pretty excited to get out of the city and be able to see the stars.
Not to mention, I am excited to have the time and energy to cook again. I've been repeating the same few meals over and over (which include spaghetti and tacos) for the past month or so just as a way to get by, but I miss being able to be creative and try new recipes. I just haven't been able to lately. I have just been skating by trying to make it through each week.
Here's to self-care....and sanity :)

Week 2: Jan 7th-13th and the waiting, the annoying waiting

I am beginning to love Mondays.
Who would have thought? The most despised day of the week by most would evolve into one of my favorites.
The thing is, I have a grueling schedule throughout the week. It is just go-go-go from 4am to some times as late as 9pm. It's filled with traffic, commuting, lectures, presentations, due dates, clients, more commuting, reading, supervision, deadlines, time frames, did I mention commuting? So it's easy Tue-Fri to feel like I am so far behind on absolutely everything and find it difficult to really clear my head and combat my responsibilities with a calm mind. The weekend allows for some of that, but even then I'm with my boyfriend much of the time and I would way rather spend time with him doing enjoyable things that studying/reading/school work/prepping for clients.
So here is where Monday comes in. While the rest of the world is going to work, I am home for the day. I plan out ahead of time what all needs to be accomplished on this day:

• work out
• Various school/dissertation responsibilities
• Cooking for tonight and prepping/cooking for tomorrow when I don't get home until 9pm
• Time for writing
• A shower at some point and other various things

We've worked it out that J and I work out together Mon and Wed in the morning. We each have our own little routine we came up with ourselves (some variation of push-up/dips/sit-ups,etc). Then he goes to work, leaving me the house to myself. I fluctuate between school work, meal prepping, and breaks so as to never get burnt out doing either for too long. Mondays, unlike most days, I feel like I can actually breathe. I feel like I actually have some control over the whens, wheres, and whys of what I'm doing.

Now onto my list of 5 things:

1. Baked cookies....and brownies. I got to bake twice throughout this week. It helps that J is in love with my baking and is always game for me to bake anything so it's really killing 2 birds with 1 spoon ;)

2. Worked out the first time in a long while. As I said, J and I have started working out in the AM on some days doing our customized to fit us routines.
Mine:
5 push-ups
10 sit-ups
5 squats
5 dips
10 calf-raisers
10 lunges
20 crunches
(Repeat: total 3 times)
Then eventually, each week I will add 2 reps to each exercise.

It's amazing because even when I first came up with it I thought "meh... this is probably too easy for me and won't give me much of a work out" but then you have to remember that these numbers are actually x3 because you go through the routine 3 times. Plus, after the first day of doing it last week I couldn't walk right for days my legs were so sore! So, I'd say I gave myself a pretty good challenging start. I also made the mistake of not stretching before or after... so I learned my lesson there!

3. Used my crock-pot for the first time ever! I got this crock-pot probably back in about '05. I never used it, then I moved back in with my mom shortly before moving away to Hawaii which resulted in the thing being stashed away at my moms (who lord knows did not touch the thing) until this past Christmas break when we unexpectedly were driving back and I said "Oooh I have room to bring my crock-pot!" and was determined to make use of it, finally. Thank goodness it actually still worked, and it worked well. The meal was a success and I currently have tomorrow's dinner of creamy chicken chili cooking in there as I type. Yes.. I'm so on top of everything that I'm cooking tomorrow's dinner at 3 in the afternoon the day before. (except that whole "being on top of everything" will be completed destroyed as my 4am alarm goes off tomorrow morning, so just let me have it for now!)

4. Last night we went to see Craig Carothers play in Berkeley. This is a January tour he's done, apparently for about 10 years now with Don Henry and Steve Seskin. I surprised J with the show last year when he was playing in Santa Clara the weekend of J's birthday that he happened to be visiting me down in CA from Portland. It was perfect. Needless to say, when we found out he was playing less than 10 miles away in Berkeley, we knew we were going. It was, as always, a wonderful experience. We really need to make more time for events such as this, because it really is enjoyable for both of us.

5. This past week I booked our hotel for a trip to Vegas we're planning with my best friend and her boyfriend. Granted, the trip itself is not until May but planning for a vacation is quite enjoyable. Especially when you're able to get such a good deal, with the help of my dad and his timeshare he has there, we were able to get a great deal for our stay. May is both mine and my best friend's birthday month. This year (2013) Also marks 20 years of friendship with her. 20 years!! Other than those I'm related to, I have not had such a close, consistent relationship with anyone else in my life. So there are lots of reasons to celebrate and Vegas is just a wonderful place to do it! Not to mention, J has never been! So that will be exciting as well.

This past week has also been pretty frustrating for me. APA is the annual conference for psychology, it's a pretty big deal and it's especially important for me because it's in Hawaii this year. I haven't been back since I moved back to the mainland in '10. I've made it a mission of mine to submit/get accepted to APA '13 since I started grad school. Submission deadline for APA conference was Nov 15th. THe conference is not until August, so I assumed we'd be hearing back around March or so. All the sudden starting on Thursday, my Facebook wall is filled with a number of different people from my program posting "I got accepted to APA!" and "APA here I come" and other various celebratory comments about how excited they were about getting accepted. I started checking my email frantically, about 37 times a day, waiting to hear back. and nothing. Not a word.
I know I will hear back either way, whether I've been accepted or rejected, so the lack of hearing anything is not a bad sign necessarily. It is, however, excruciatingly annoying and frustrating.
Despite the progress I've made with having patience and not focusing on what I cannot control.. I still, really, really hate waiting...especially while everyone else seems to be rejoicing.
So I continue to play the waiting game.

There's always time for dinner, especially when it involves potatoes!

I've been in kind of a rut in terms of food.
It's finals time, so I am just sort of shoveling down whatever will make the growling in my stomach go away as I'm racing from here to there or writing/studying for hours upon hours.
It is so easy around this time to lose sight of what is really important, my health. I don't get as much sleep, I don't eat as well, my stress levels are heightened, I'm not running as much... it all sort of gets put on the back burner.
Today, nodding off in the library after an 8 hour day of brain power I decided it was time to head home.
I went grocery shopping not too long ago with the thought of "if I have good food in my apartment, I'm more likely to eat it."
This is true, except it takes time to make most of it, so I've been surviving off the grab-and-go foods I bought.
I decided that tonight that needed to change. Since I didn't have class tonight like I normally do, I was home earlier than usual and actually had the time to make a good dinner.
So I've got the time, I've got some good potential in terms of ingredients, but I am at a loss as to what to cook!
I decided to wing it and came up with a pretty great recipe and decided it's worth documenting for later.

Ingredients:
Red potatoes (the amount is flexible and will depend on how many people you're serving/how much leftovers you want and how big of a dish you're using)
Garlic Salt -to taste
Pepper -to taste
Butter (or butter substitute) - 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons
Vegetable broth -3/4 cup
 Parmesan cheese (as topping)


Preheat the oven for 375 degrees.

• Slice the red potatoes as thin or thick as you like, keeping in mind that the thicker they are, the longer it may take.
• Layer them laying flat on the bottom of the baking dish (any old over-safe baking dish will do and again, size depends on how much you plan to make)
• Season with garlic salt and pepper (or whatever seasonings you prefer on potatoes)
• Repeat the last 2 steps: (layer potatoes & season)
• Until you've used up your potatoes. (I had 2 layers in mine)
• Next top with the butter. (just drop it on top, it will melt)
• Lastly add the vegetable broth

Put the dish into the oven, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
Stir the contents in the dish, then keep it in for another 5 min or so.
Next, Cover the dish with foil and keep in the over for about 15 or so minutes longer until more of the liquid is absorbed and the potatoes are soft when pierced with a fork.
(These times may differ depending on the oven, so just be aware of that)

This is how they looked when I removed them from the oven. There is still a fair amount of liquid in the pan, and that is fine.
Put them on a plate and top with some Parmesan cheese.

 Now they're ready to eat!
I paired mine with chicken and green beans, which were all delicious together, but they would be a good side for really any dish you'd normally eat potatoes with :)

I will most definitely be making these again. It was a pretty no-fuss dish, once you get them sliced and into the dish its just a matter of waiting for the oven to do it's thing.
If I can do it with my "grad-school" brain (that is what my peers and I have labeled all the lame mistakes we make in our daily functioning because our brains have turned to mush from all the studying/reading/writing) anyone can do it.