2012 Quickie Recap

I saw this floating around the blogosphere, and while I don't typically like these things, I thought it would be a great way for me to focus on the positives of a rather crappy year. So here goes:

Favorite trip? Easter in Austin and a family wedding in Michigan. Here are Mr. Snoop and I at said wedding. Selfie!

Favorite book? Columbine by Dave Cullen. If you liked In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, you should read this, though it is not as gory as In Cold Blood. Well-researched, well-written. Amazing book.

Favorite movie? Hmmm... Les Miserables.

Favorite TV show? Downton Abbey and Boardwalk Empire. Gosh, I am such a girl.

Favorite song? Album? Call me maybe. So sue me.

Favorite purchase? New workout clothes to replace the ones I've had since (yikes) high school. It was time.

Favorite meal out? Peekskill Brewery with Mr. Snoop.

Favorite new recipe? I love to cook! Cauliflower Cheddar Soup from Martha and Spicy Ham and Greens Quiche from Southern Living

Favorite day? March 17. A beautiful, unseasonably warm Saturday. I had just gotten great news about my health after a long, really rough month. So I sat outside in our front yard in shorts (in March! in New York! alleluia!), read a book, and soaked up the sun. It was heavenly:

Favorite development? Running again. It took some hellacious stuff to get me to go there, but I'm so glad I did.

Favorite outfit? Hmmm... anything summery, as usual. I liked the navy dress + coral necklace + yellow purse I wore to the family wedding. And of course any colorful top with white jeans and summery shoes!

Favorite Holiday: Easter, always.

What about you??

Holiday Recap

Phew.

We stuck around here for Christmas. As much as I would have loved to be in Texas, it was nice not to have to fly, especially since we got snow the day after Christmas. Here are some highlights from the last week or so:

- Children's Christmas Pageant at my work. First of all, there is nothing cuter than a children's Chrismas pageant. Ever. Nothing beats little guys dressed up like sheep (+ one cow). Also, it is one of the few children's programs I do not work on, so I get to sit back, relax, and enjoy. Though I did get a little teary since this might be my last pageant there.

- Lots of hang time with my most marvelous sister-in-law.

- Finding delicious tamales for Christmas Eve. I love that we are continuing this tradition even though we are hundreds of miles away from Texas.

- Christmas morning breakfast at our house:

- A Christmas morning double kitty shotgun salute:

- Lots of time with friends who came in from out of town. One of Mr. Snoop's fraternity brothers and my Yessica were both around.

- Les Mis. Holy crap, Anne Hathaway.

- Saying goodbye and good riddance to 2012. It was not the best year for me, Mr. Snoop, or anyone in my immediate family. For many, many reasons. So happy to have the year done with and on to a better year in 2013.

A Voice in Ramah

A voice was heard in Ramah
Sobbing and loudly lamenting:
it was Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted
because they were no more

A voice is heard in Ramah
and in all the places of sadness.
It is the voice of God,
who as a mother,
has seen the pain of her children
and seen beyond it.

"Keep your voice from weeping
and keep your eyes from tears;
for your grieving has been heard
and your work shall be rewarded.

"There is hope for your future.
I have prepared a place for your children
and will keep them in perfect peace,
until the old things have disappeared
and there is new heaven
and there is new earth"

Gracious God,
In your motherly heart,
you share and bear the pain
of all who grieve for lost children.

Keep in your kindness
those whose names are written in our hearts
or on our consciences,
until the day when we see them face to face
and know that our grieving is over
and that all your promises are kept.
Amen.

From Cloth For The Cradle, Iona Community / Wild Good Worship Group. Pages 120 - 121.

I saw Lady Mary Crawley on my run

On Monday the high hit FIFTY EIGHT degrees. Alleluia! It was kind of nasty and insanely foggy, but nevertheless, alleluia!

Since the temperature was above freezing, I had to take my new lululemon shorts out for a run. I got to squeeze in a quick, easy three miles on the aqueduct before yoga. The great thing about my yoga studio is that I can park there and then run up to the Old Croton Aqueduct trail. So convenient. Since it was an easy (and wet!!) run, I had to stop to take a picture of this sight. It was a billion times more awesome and eerie in person.

Seriously, those robber barons sure knew what they were doing. You can't see it due to all the fog, but the Hudson is right behind the mansion. I am pretty darn grateful that I get to take in view like that while I run. Does anyone else suddenly have the Downton Abbey song stuck in their head now? Right? Where's Lady Mary?

I somehow managed to fight the urge to pretend to live in Downton Abbey land and go dramatically sweeping down the rolling lawn (but y'all, I do have an antique, 1920s engagement ring. That counts for something, right?) Naturally, Bombs over Baghdad came on my shuffle as soon as I put my headphones on after taking the picture. Of course. Gosh, I'm so hardcore. I really should sync my playlist to play the Downton Abbey music right when I come out of the woods onto this estate. How amazing would that be?

Speaking of amazing, the English countryside, and Lady Mary Crawley, and majesty in general, here please appreciate another view from my run on Monday:

Downton Abbey still stuck in your head? Before I moved to the Great White North, I thought the South had cornered the market on tacky. Wrong again! You better believe this place had loud music to accompany their decorations. Merry Christmas and you're welcome.

December Updates

So here's what has been going on in the Snoop household as of December.

- Mr Snoop has been flying across the country for interviews. He does not have very many, but it has still been insane. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a large number of interviews and have to fly around everywhere to get to those. Then again, all of his interview have been well south of the Mason Dixon, which means longer and more travel.

- My main goal in life right now is to try to stay sane in this interview process. Luckily (I guess) December is such a busy month. So my life has looked like..

- Work

- Yoga. I always knew I had tight hamstrings, but I had no idea they were this bad. My down dog is absolutely atrocious. And I have had many, many sightings of panties man. My theory was correct. He comes in his regular clothes and then just strips down to his underwear. I would freeze.

- In a possibly related note, I am coming down with a sty/pinkeye. This typically happens when I am stressed, but I still blame panties man. Yes, I bring my own mat. But still, I knew that sh*t is unsanitary.

- Christmas prep. Typically I have all my shopping done by December 1. Ha. Not this year. This is complicated by the impending arrival of a new niece (!!!!) soon. Still need to make a big brother gift.

- I made my first lululemon purchase. Typically, I do not like to spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes I am going to sweat in. But then there was a lululemon outlet. And they had $19 running shorts that have a zipper in the back waist for a car key. And they were marvelously comfortable and pretty darn cute. So I bought 3 pairs. I'm justifying it by the fact that they were originally $68 a piece (I mean really?? Come on!).

The End

This One Time At Yoga

In order to combat my well-documented crazy at this time of year, I had planned to do lots of running. But then I remembered that the sun goes down before I leave work. And I can't run on a treadmill because I'm high maintenance and it makes me feel like a hamster.

Since I can't run on week days, I had the great idea to get a groupon for a month of unlimited yoga at a studio just down the road. So far I really like it and it is helping my daylight savings induced crazy. But y'all, these yoga people are intense. My mom (Hi Mama Cat!) is a super yogi, but she doesn't take herself so seriously.

The other day at my class, I saw this guy walk in wearing jeans and a fleece. He set up his mat and everything, and I was thinking, Wow, he really must be awesome to do yoga in jeans. Well, I looked away and then next thing I know, Bam! There was a guy wearing a black spandex shirt and.... panties! Yep. The jeans and fleece guy had transformed. Quite suddenly, I might add. Teeny, tiny, itty bitty, little, black man panties. Very tight, they were.

Now I don't know if wearing man-panties to yoga is normal. The first time I took Mr. Snoop to Barton Springs in Austin, there was a dude doing this inversion in a blue speedo:

Source: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/481

But that's Austin. Totally par for the course. I didn't even really think twice because it wasn't a thong or women's underwear, you know? But seeing man-panties here in the suburbs of NYC (in late November, nonetheless) took me completely by surprise. I mean, men wear suits to casual gatherings here.

I guess if I were a real, honest-to-God, crunchy yoga person I would totally not be sharing this information with you. But I'm not. And let's face it, I'm just not mature enough to let this one slide. Fortunately, the panties guy was waaaaaay across the class from me, and I was too focused on not falling down to spy on him. Thank God, because if he had been next to me I'm positive that I would have been comepletely unable to control my giggles. Oh, and after class he just walked around talking to the teacher and other students, right there in his panties like "Hey, here I am, me, my panties, and everything else."

So now I'm doing research. Since Toto, we are not in Austin anymore, is this normal? My co-worker is a total yoga person, so I asked her. After she nearly peed her pants laughing, she told me that no, no it is not. In your experience, are man-panties in yoga an acceptable and normal occurence?

Thanksgiving 2012

Hey y'all. So we went to Texas for Thanksgiving. And it was a wonderful, much-needed break. Frankly, Mr. Snoop's residency application process has been sort of hellacious. And being the supportive cheerleader wife has completely wiped me out. Being back home was really nice. As much as I love my med school friends, it was great for Mr. Snoop and I to hang out with my Austin friends, none of whom are in the medical field. Nice to escape the "everything revolves around med school" world for a week. The trip was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively.

We spent lots of time outside. After living in such a cold climate for 4 years, I've come to realize how good being outside is for the soul. Cheesy but true. My friends have a tradition of playing football the day after Thanksgiving. And before that, Mr. Snoop, Chris (my brother), and I did the Austin Trukey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. It was a nice, easy 5 mile run. Next year I'm going to get my act together and make us costumes. Here we are afterward:

We also went to the Texas / TCU game. Which was really quiet and we lost. Not unexepectedly, I'm afraid. Here we are with horns up, nonetheless. Chris pointed out that because of the shadows we all look like demon children from the mouth of hell in this picture. That and I really need a tan. See above about the outdoors being good for the soul.

Hey, at least our band is freakin awesome:

I'm back in New York but Mr. Snoop is still in Texas having the greatest time going hunting with the dudes in my family. He has an interview this weekend, which was originally Nov. 1, but there was this little weather event known as Sandy, so his flight got canceled. So in conclusion: I'm retiring my pom-poms for a little bit and allowing myself to be completely freaked out by this whole residency application process. Thanks for hangin' in there with us, in advance.