Familiar face

I had the pleasure of hosting my aunt last weekend.  We did a lot of exploring and found a good bit of character in Columbus. It was great having a familiar face around. I believe the old saying that there is power in numbers, although in this case, its perhaps not power but confidence. Not that 2 is a very large number, but it is in fact twice the amount of my usual dinner reservation. 

Friday night after she got in we hit the mall, aand had dinner. Saturday we went to the international farmers market downtown. There were several interesting things to see and places to go.  

  

There was a lot of bakeries with an absurd amount of chocolate. I am not sure if it was because it was Valentine's day or they just have that much chocolate everyday. Let's hope it's the later becaue if so I will be returning to purchase more. 

There were several great places to buy meat and free range poultry. 

   

 

I had flashbacks of Korea when I saw this case. 

We bought a delicious loaf of Italian bread from this baker. 

There were somewhat sporadic dining options. 

After the farmers market we stopped by the Columbus Museum of Art.

To see the To Live Forever exhibit which included artifacts from Ancient Egypt. 

At the end of the exhibit, several Egyptian garments and head dresses were available for dress up. 

The rest of the weekend we spent eating at good restaurants and driving around Columbus.  I appreciated the time she spent up here.  It was great to have some family around. In two weeks I will be home for a short weekend. I am very excited about being home. 

The light at the end of the wind funnel

Sheer pleasure is the only way I can describe my feelings when I saw the weather forecast for this week, which predicted 50 degrees. Monday and yesterday were very nice. I actually wore a short sleeve shirt to work yesterday and all of you know me so that's a big step from the 3 layers I have been wearing.  As you have seen, I have a large window in my office. It doesn't matter what temperature it is outside, it always looks gorgeous. I casually asked my 1:00 patient what the weather was like outside.  She said it was nice, but she had heard that some bad weather was headed our way. I didn't think much about it until about 4:30. I was in my office doing some paper work when all of a sudden the sky turned black. Literally the sky turned black as night in about 10 seconds. The rain was pouring and the wind was gusting. My office window was rattling. I thought about panicking for a moment. I took a second and regained my composure before walking up to the front desk. Everyone had apparently noticed the sudden change in weather and was staring out the front window.  Later we found out that a tornado had touched down near the hospital. We waited until the tornado watches were over before any one left. The weather cleared up nicely for my drive home. About 9:00 I noticed the wind had picked up again. Since that time it has progressively worsened. I just watched the news where they said current winds are gusting at 35-40 miles per hour.  This is the reason that I am still awake. I have a tree beside my window that is continuously banging into the window. 

More great news. Aunt Joan is coming up to visit me this weekend. I am very excited. It is going to be great to see a familiar face. I have been doing some research on restaurants and fun places to go while she is here. I will take plenty of pictures and update you on all the fun.  

A first time for everything.

This week flew by. I stayed very busy this week at work. Amidst all the patients and paperwork this week,  I had a little time to work on my office. It is starting to come together. I received my new lab coats too. Now I get to look all important. 

                 

One particular thing I love about my office is the huge picture window and the geese that live below it. Several times over the past few weeks I have found joy from gazing out the window and watching the geese pitter-patter around in the snow. Yesterday I peeked out the window in my 5 minutes between dictation and my 1:00 patient and this is what I saw:  

For those nonobservant readers, to the left of the geese someone made a footprint heart in the snow. It's incredible that such as small thing brightened my entire week.  

Speaking of snow, even though it is freezing and I hate the cold, I am still obsessed with taking pictures of it. 

    

I am not sure if it was the monotonous week of going to work and coming home or the fact that it was actually above freezing, but I felt that I needed to get out of the house. I decided to go a movie. I have never been to the movies alone, but there is a first time for everything. My apprehensive feeling only increased when the guy at the movie counter apparently needed to clarify by questioning "Only one?" when I purchased my ticket. Looking for moral support I sent a text to a couple good friends. My favorite response was"It's not depressing. It's empowering." Thank you for the support. It made me feel much better, as did the other replies. I am very fortunate to have wonderful friends who care about me so much.   

I have no big plans for the weekend. The weather channel said there is a possibility of the temp getting into the upper 40s. If that is the case I might be out by the pool soaking in the sun ;)