Saturday, February 28, 2009

Mental Overload

I've spent the last week doing the best rotation I've had and also the hardest. The best because the people I was lucky enough to be placed with are amazing and inspirational and kind and smart and...all the good adjectives you can think of and on top of that, they're doing what I want to do. Wellness and health promotion in a private practice setting, speaking engagements, programs for individuals and families too, just amazing. If you google the owner's name you get back over 5,000 hits and a lot of them are for her, not some random person with the same name. Just so inspiring, and they liked me! Said I was the best intern they've ever had and that they do not say that lightly. Absolutely made my day and I wish I was going back Monday instead of moving on to other things.
This last week was hard because after putting our family pet to sleep last Friday, my husband also had to be gone that night and then left on Sunday to be gone in LA all week until Thursday night. So I was on the best school experience ever and basically trying to single mom it too. Being a single mother has to be hands down the hardest thing EVER in my experience because you don't just get to be a mom, you have to keep the whole ship afloat on top of trying to be mommy and that's where the problems come in I think. I still feel beat up from exhaustion this morning despite sleeping in a few hrs to almost 8am. I also devoted 100% of my brain power to the job this week because I wanted them to see the real me and to like me and I'm glad it worked. It is a great feeling to be valued by people you value. I will stay in contact with them and my hope is one day when I have more experience to be able to work with them in some capacity. In the meantime I need a website and a business plan for myself and I have to get ye olde resume polished up to get a job post graduation. Experience only helps, never hinders when it comes to counseling patients.
So the kale chips, I found a recipe just googling kale chips because I had seen them mentioned elsewhere. You end up with a very similar texture to lay's original potato chips and the flavor still remains somewhat bitter (they are a serious set of greens after all) but it is also similar to potato chips. You de-stem the leaves of kale, toss in vinegar and olive oil (a tad) and season them how you want, I just used salt because that's what the recipe said. I think it takes trial and error with your own oven temperature and timing and seasoning to get a result you really love but I was pleased with my first attempt. Kale is full of iron, calcium, vitamin A and vitamin C. Kale would also be a good source of Vitamin K so for those taking coumadin or warfarin (same thing) be aware of increasing or decreasing your amount of leafy greens because it will interact with the medication.
To Vickie: I know you had a request for me to find some information and I am happy to do so however I'm not sure where that comment went so if you could let me know again I will work on that.
Exercise was almost non existent this week, I am not exaggerating when I tell you I am lucky I was on two feet most of the time. I did however eat very well even with getting lunch three times due to lack of strength or energy and timing to prepare things. I did tons of research work this week so I'll probably be sharing some of that with you.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ive missed you!

thanks for checking in.

heres hoping you have a relaxing sunday---you deserve it.

Miz.

Leah J. Utas said...

Thanks for the kale chips recipe. And thanks for the rat poison warning. I'm back on it so I likely won't be making these for a while.

Vickie said...

was looking for an easy site that has stats on whole foods (fruit, veggies, etc) that I can copy, paste on index cards and keep in my kitchen - so that I (or kids) can see how much protein, carbs, naturally occurring sodium, calcium, etc are in these foods.

I found a few sites but they were HARd to use and had way too much information to make them practical.

glad you survived your week!!!