Yes it's Valentine's Day! And to anyone saying 'bahhh humbug' to this holiday, I say wake up and smell the proverbial roses! Love exists in many ways all around us. So take time today to celebrate the many 'loves' and REASONS to love you have in your life. And what better way to do so then with a little movie, popcorn and chocolate on the couch options- with or WITHOUT the snuggle buddy! Here are my suggestions:
1) You want to believe in love again: The Notebook
2) You are unsure of your belief in love but you just want to look at Ryan Gosling for a couple hours: The Notebook
3) You're in love with your best friend and one (or both of you) just hasn't realized it yet: When Harry Met Sally
4) You're unsure of yourself or your capacity to love or have another person love you: Goodwill Hunting
5) You just want to ball your f#$%^ eyes out: Terms of Endearment
6) You're in love with someone who is self-destructive and already taken (optomistic outlook): Walk the Line
7) You're in love iwth someone who is self-destructive and already taken (pessimistic outlook): Crazy Heart
8) You love your best friend and they have fur and four legs AND you want to ball your f$%^& eyes out: Fox and the Hound
9) You believe in love, in all it's amazing capacities: Love Actually
10) You believe all is not fair in love and war: The English Patient
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYBODY!!!! xoxoxo Mego
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Food Inc.
As many of you know, the grocery stores here in the Hampton Roads area blow chunks! What I wouldn't give for the Kowalski's or Bylery's of home! Or the Whole Foods, Winco's and New Seasons Markets that were every where you turned in the Pacific Northwest! There is NOTHINGGGGG here that even comes CLOSE to the gourmet selection at Byer-sees... or the endless aisles of dirt cheap bulk dry goods for pennies on the dollar at Winco- a short bike ride from Pacific's campus (and conveniently located on the way to Blair and Justin's apartment- white chocolate pretzels and a $5 bottle of local, Pinot in one stop? YES PLEASE!) but nope... not around here. There are no bears... no cheap pinots... and nary an organic item on the shelf- and if you do stumble upone one, gauruntee it will NOT be under $10.
Anywho, out of the negative, into the positive. Taking matters into my own hands, I've been trying to prepare more meals from scratch and delve into my cookbook/recipe clipped library to make healthy, whole foods myself. It's cheaper, it's healthier- what not to love?!?!
What I'm really excited for is SPRING when I plan on going NUTS with organic gardening. I'm also lobbying Ryan to let me have a chicken... that's not going so well for me.
In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite recipes lately all from The Book of Meg. Enjoy!
Homemade Foccacia
3 Cups Flour
1 Tbs sea salt
1 packet active dry yeat
1 cup hot water
3 Tbs olive oil
Red Onion- sliced
Fresh Rosemary
More Olive Oil for brushing
Mix flour, salt and yeast in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle, and water and olive oil. Mix until dough forms a nice ball. (add flour or water 1 Tbs at a time if too wet/dry).
Place dough ball back in said mixing bowl sprayed with Pam, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1 hour in a sunny spot or near the stove/ heat vent.
Punch, kneed and Roll out the dough into a 12-16 inch round pizza shape. Use your fingers to press little indents all over. Brush finished round with Olive Oil. Sprinkle liberally with Sea Salt. Top with sliced red onion and fresh rosemary. Cover with plastic wrap and again let it rise 30 min. Pre-heat oven to 425. Bake for 25-30min. YUM!
**************************************
Breakfast Muf-kies!
These are a mixture of a muffin and a cookie- and you can make some substitutions to make them very low-cal (Ryan doesn't notice the difference when I make either version, and usually he eats all 15 of these in day, while I get ONE)...
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour (can use white if you want)
2 cups Oatmeal
2 Tsp Flaxseed Meal
1 tsp Salt
1 Tbs Baking Powder
1 Tsp Vanilla
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Extract
1 Stick softened butter
2 eggs (or substitute 1 cup Egg Whites)
1 cup sugar (or sub Truvia)
1 cup Craisins
1 Cup White Chocolate chips
1/2 Cup slivered almonds
Beat eggs (eat whites), melted butter, vanilla extract and lemon extract and sugar (Truvia). Add in flour, oatmeal, flax seed, salt, and baking powder. When just mixed, add in white chips and craisins. I like to bake these in a 16-cup silpat cupcake pan. But you can scoop little ice-cream-scoop iced blobs and just place on a cookie sheet. Muffin pan or sheet method, once you have your little balls formed, press some slivered almonds on top. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool to room temp and enjoy for a snack or for breakie! :)
**************************************
Hummus
1 can White Cannellini Beans
4 cloves Garlic
2 Tbs Olive Oil
2 tsp Salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
Using Food Processor or Blender, pulse garlic gloves. Add in beans, and salt pepper and blend again, with machine on drizzle in olive oil, puree til smooth, and serve immediately, or put in a tuberware and use for the next 1-3 days. (other fun add-ins to this: 1/2 an avocado or 1/2 of pitted olives.)
Bon Appetite!
Anywho, out of the negative, into the positive. Taking matters into my own hands, I've been trying to prepare more meals from scratch and delve into my cookbook/recipe clipped library to make healthy, whole foods myself. It's cheaper, it's healthier- what not to love?!?!
What I'm really excited for is SPRING when I plan on going NUTS with organic gardening. I'm also lobbying Ryan to let me have a chicken... that's not going so well for me.
In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite recipes lately all from The Book of Meg. Enjoy!
Homemade Foccacia
3 Cups Flour
1 Tbs sea salt
1 packet active dry yeat
1 cup hot water
3 Tbs olive oil
Red Onion- sliced
Fresh Rosemary
More Olive Oil for brushing
Mix flour, salt and yeast in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle, and water and olive oil. Mix until dough forms a nice ball. (add flour or water 1 Tbs at a time if too wet/dry).
Place dough ball back in said mixing bowl sprayed with Pam, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1 hour in a sunny spot or near the stove/ heat vent.
Punch, kneed and Roll out the dough into a 12-16 inch round pizza shape. Use your fingers to press little indents all over. Brush finished round with Olive Oil. Sprinkle liberally with Sea Salt. Top with sliced red onion and fresh rosemary. Cover with plastic wrap and again let it rise 30 min. Pre-heat oven to 425. Bake for 25-30min. YUM!
**************************************
Breakfast Muf-kies!
These are a mixture of a muffin and a cookie- and you can make some substitutions to make them very low-cal (Ryan doesn't notice the difference when I make either version, and usually he eats all 15 of these in day, while I get ONE)...
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour (can use white if you want)
2 cups Oatmeal
2 Tsp Flaxseed Meal
1 tsp Salt
1 Tbs Baking Powder
1 Tsp Vanilla
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Extract
1 Stick softened butter
2 eggs (or substitute 1 cup Egg Whites)
1 cup sugar (or sub Truvia)
1 cup Craisins
1 Cup White Chocolate chips
1/2 Cup slivered almonds
Beat eggs (eat whites), melted butter, vanilla extract and lemon extract and sugar (Truvia). Add in flour, oatmeal, flax seed, salt, and baking powder. When just mixed, add in white chips and craisins. I like to bake these in a 16-cup silpat cupcake pan. But you can scoop little ice-cream-scoop iced blobs and just place on a cookie sheet. Muffin pan or sheet method, once you have your little balls formed, press some slivered almonds on top. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool to room temp and enjoy for a snack or for breakie! :)
**************************************
Hummus
1 can White Cannellini Beans
4 cloves Garlic
2 Tbs Olive Oil
2 tsp Salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
Using Food Processor or Blender, pulse garlic gloves. Add in beans, and salt pepper and blend again, with machine on drizzle in olive oil, puree til smooth, and serve immediately, or put in a tuberware and use for the next 1-3 days. (other fun add-ins to this: 1/2 an avocado or 1/2 of pitted olives.)
Bon Appetite!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
I'm backkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk...
It has been EONS since I have posted (my apologies to my 5 devoted blog followers...) BUT now I'm BACK and determined to get back on the blogging train. Starting out with THIS little gem... brought to my attention via Ryan- who knows all too well my distain for American "Emergency Medicine". He thought I'd like this article (I did!) so much so that I am passing it on for said adoring (though miniscule) public to enjoy as well. Food for thought on this hump day. Look for less cynical posts to return shortly... xoxo Mego
"Treating a Nation of Anxious Whimps" by Dr. Thomas Doyle
"Emergency departments are distilleries boiling complex blends of trauma, stress and emotion down to the essence of immediacy: what needs to be done, right now, to fix the problem. Working the past twenty years in such environments has shown me with great clarity what is wrong (and right) with our nation’s medical system. It’s obvious to me that despite all the furor and rancor, what is being debated in Washington currently is not healthcare reform. It’s only healthcare insurance reform. It addresses the undeniably important issues of who is going to pay and how, but completely misses the point of why. Healthcare costs too much in our country because we deliver too much healthcare. We deliver too much because we demand too much. And we demand it for all the wrong reasons. We’re turning into a nation of anxious wimps.
I still love my job; very few things are as emotionally rewarding as relieving true pain and suffering, sharing compassionate care and actually saving lives. Illness and injury will always require the best efforts our medical system can provide. But emergency departments nationwide are being overwhelmed by the non-emergent, and doctors in general are asked to treat what doesn’t need treatment.
In a single night I had patients come in for the following complaints (all brought by ambulance): “Smoked marijuana and got dizzy”, “stung by a bee and it hurts”, “got drunk and have a hangover”, “sat out in the sun and got sunburn”, “ate Mexican food and threw up”, “picked my nose and it bled, but now it stopped”, “just had sex and want to know if I’m pregnant.” Since all my colleagues and I have worked our shifts while suffering from worse symptoms than these (well, hopefully not the marijuana), we have understandably lost some of our natural empathy for such patients. When working with a cold, flu or headache, I often feel I am like one of those cute little animal signs in amusement parks that say “you must be taller than me to ride this ride” only my sign would read “you must be sicker than me to come to our emergency department.” You’d be surprised how many patients wouldn’t qualify.
At a time when we have an unprecedented obsession with health – Dr. Oz, The Doctors, Oprah and a host of daytime talk shows make the smallest issues seem like apocalyptic pandemics – we have substandard national wellness. This is largely because the media focuses on the exotic and the sensational and ignores the mundane. Our society has warped our perception of true risk. We are taught to fear vaccinations, mold, shark attacks, airplanes and breast implants when we really should worry about smoking, drug abuse, obesity, cars and basic hygiene. If you go by pharmaceutical advertisement budgets, our most critical health needs are to have sex and fall asleep.
Somehow we have developed an expectation that our health should always be perfect, and if it isn’t, there should be a pill to fix it. With every ache and sniffle we run to the doctor, or purchase useless quackery such as Airborne or homeopathic cures (to the tune of tens of billions of dollars). We demand unnecessary diagnostic testing, antibiotics for our viruses, narcotics for bruises and sprains. And due to time constraints on physicians, fear of lawsuits and the pressure to keep patients satisfied, we usually get them.
Yet the great secret of medicine is that almost everything we see will get better (or worse) no matter how we treat it. Usually better. The human body is exquisitely talented at healing. If bodies didn’t heal by themselves, we’d be up the creek. Even in an Intensive Care Unit, with our most advanced techniques applied, all we’re really doing is optimizing the conditions under which natural healing can occur. We give oxygen and fluids in the right proportions, raise or lower the blood pressure as needed and allow the natural healing mechanisms time to do their work. It’s as if you could put your car in the service garage, make sure you gave it plenty of gas, oil and brake fluid, and then expect the transmission to fix itself.
The bottom line is that most conditions are self-limited. This doesn’t mesh well with our immediate-gratification, instant-action society. But usually that bronchitis or back ache or poison ivy or stomach flu just needs time to get better. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning wasn’t your doctor being lazy in the middle of the night; it was sound medical practice. As a wise pediatrician colleague of mine once told me, “Our best medicines are Tincture of Time and Elixir of Neglect.” Taking drugs for things that go away on their own is rarely helpful and often harmful.
We’ve become a nation of hypochondriacs. Every sneeze is swine flu, every headache a tumor. And at great expense, we deliver fantastically prompt, thorough and largely unnecessary care. There is tremendous financial pressure on physicians to keep patients happy. But unlike business, in medicine the customer isn’t always right. Sometimes a doctor needs to show tough love and deny patients the quick fix. A good physician needs to have the guts to stand up to people and tell them that their baby gets ear infections because they smoke cigarettes. That it’s time to admit they are alcoholics. That they need to suck it up and deal with discomfort because narcotics will just make everything worse. That what’s really wrong with them is that they are just too damned fat. Unfortunately, this type of advice rarely leads to high patient satisfaction scores. Modern medicine is a blessing which improves all our lives. But until we start educating the general populace about what really affects their health and what a doctor is capable (and more importantly, incapable) of fixing, we will continue to waste a large portion of our healthcare dollar on treatments which just don’t make any difference."
Dr. Thomas A. Doyle is an emergency physician who practices in Sewickley, PA. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Suck It Up, America: The Tough Choices Needed for Real Health-Care Reform”
"Treating a Nation of Anxious Whimps" by Dr. Thomas Doyle
"Emergency departments are distilleries boiling complex blends of trauma, stress and emotion down to the essence of immediacy: what needs to be done, right now, to fix the problem. Working the past twenty years in such environments has shown me with great clarity what is wrong (and right) with our nation’s medical system. It’s obvious to me that despite all the furor and rancor, what is being debated in Washington currently is not healthcare reform. It’s only healthcare insurance reform. It addresses the undeniably important issues of who is going to pay and how, but completely misses the point of why. Healthcare costs too much in our country because we deliver too much healthcare. We deliver too much because we demand too much. And we demand it for all the wrong reasons. We’re turning into a nation of anxious wimps.
I still love my job; very few things are as emotionally rewarding as relieving true pain and suffering, sharing compassionate care and actually saving lives. Illness and injury will always require the best efforts our medical system can provide. But emergency departments nationwide are being overwhelmed by the non-emergent, and doctors in general are asked to treat what doesn’t need treatment.
In a single night I had patients come in for the following complaints (all brought by ambulance): “Smoked marijuana and got dizzy”, “stung by a bee and it hurts”, “got drunk and have a hangover”, “sat out in the sun and got sunburn”, “ate Mexican food and threw up”, “picked my nose and it bled, but now it stopped”, “just had sex and want to know if I’m pregnant.” Since all my colleagues and I have worked our shifts while suffering from worse symptoms than these (well, hopefully not the marijuana), we have understandably lost some of our natural empathy for such patients. When working with a cold, flu or headache, I often feel I am like one of those cute little animal signs in amusement parks that say “you must be taller than me to ride this ride” only my sign would read “you must be sicker than me to come to our emergency department.” You’d be surprised how many patients wouldn’t qualify.
At a time when we have an unprecedented obsession with health – Dr. Oz, The Doctors, Oprah and a host of daytime talk shows make the smallest issues seem like apocalyptic pandemics – we have substandard national wellness. This is largely because the media focuses on the exotic and the sensational and ignores the mundane. Our society has warped our perception of true risk. We are taught to fear vaccinations, mold, shark attacks, airplanes and breast implants when we really should worry about smoking, drug abuse, obesity, cars and basic hygiene. If you go by pharmaceutical advertisement budgets, our most critical health needs are to have sex and fall asleep.
Somehow we have developed an expectation that our health should always be perfect, and if it isn’t, there should be a pill to fix it. With every ache and sniffle we run to the doctor, or purchase useless quackery such as Airborne or homeopathic cures (to the tune of tens of billions of dollars). We demand unnecessary diagnostic testing, antibiotics for our viruses, narcotics for bruises and sprains. And due to time constraints on physicians, fear of lawsuits and the pressure to keep patients satisfied, we usually get them.
Yet the great secret of medicine is that almost everything we see will get better (or worse) no matter how we treat it. Usually better. The human body is exquisitely talented at healing. If bodies didn’t heal by themselves, we’d be up the creek. Even in an Intensive Care Unit, with our most advanced techniques applied, all we’re really doing is optimizing the conditions under which natural healing can occur. We give oxygen and fluids in the right proportions, raise or lower the blood pressure as needed and allow the natural healing mechanisms time to do their work. It’s as if you could put your car in the service garage, make sure you gave it plenty of gas, oil and brake fluid, and then expect the transmission to fix itself.
The bottom line is that most conditions are self-limited. This doesn’t mesh well with our immediate-gratification, instant-action society. But usually that bronchitis or back ache or poison ivy or stomach flu just needs time to get better. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning wasn’t your doctor being lazy in the middle of the night; it was sound medical practice. As a wise pediatrician colleague of mine once told me, “Our best medicines are Tincture of Time and Elixir of Neglect.” Taking drugs for things that go away on their own is rarely helpful and often harmful.
We’ve become a nation of hypochondriacs. Every sneeze is swine flu, every headache a tumor. And at great expense, we deliver fantastically prompt, thorough and largely unnecessary care. There is tremendous financial pressure on physicians to keep patients happy. But unlike business, in medicine the customer isn’t always right. Sometimes a doctor needs to show tough love and deny patients the quick fix. A good physician needs to have the guts to stand up to people and tell them that their baby gets ear infections because they smoke cigarettes. That it’s time to admit they are alcoholics. That they need to suck it up and deal with discomfort because narcotics will just make everything worse. That what’s really wrong with them is that they are just too damned fat. Unfortunately, this type of advice rarely leads to high patient satisfaction scores. Modern medicine is a blessing which improves all our lives. But until we start educating the general populace about what really affects their health and what a doctor is capable (and more importantly, incapable) of fixing, we will continue to waste a large portion of our healthcare dollar on treatments which just don’t make any difference."
Dr. Thomas A. Doyle is an emergency physician who practices in Sewickley, PA. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Suck It Up, America: The Tough Choices Needed for Real Health-Care Reform”
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