A Day in the Life, Part Two - Getting to Work

After we wake up, it's breakfast time! I've showered and had some coffee, hurrying while the rest of the family is asleep. The favorite breakfast right now is frozen waffles with eggs or Morningstar sausages and fruit from our farm share. A nice, balanced combo of packaged foods and simple sugars, meat substitutes, and whole organic foods: the breakfast of my champions! I try to make breakfast count since the kids say they get hungry during the day. Margaret is still pouting since it's morning. William is ready to go!

After a little breakfast, Margaret joins the day.

After a little breakfast, William is already completely goofy. Eric must have already eaten and is now wandering around the house trying to put entire rolls of toilet paper in the toilet or something similar.

While the kids eat, I pack my breakfast and my lunch. It's too stressful to eat with the family in the morning. I'd rather eat at my desk these days!

I try to find some appropriate work clothes, sorting though my closet which is now full of Halloween costumes. This is the time in the morning when I leave the light in the bedroom on, trying to get Sean out of bed. This is also right around the time I start nagging him to" Hurry up and help me, I'm going to be late to work!!!" He has heard this before, so there is generally no great effect. " Ya, Ya!", he grumbles.

Sean gets up and drinks a cup of coffee with the kids while I finish getting ready. By this time I'm moving faster and faster around the house doing last-minute pick up, dressing occasional children, finding my keys, oh, maybe I'll just start the laundry really quick, William do you have your lunch, Sean will you set out their jackets, don't forget this, don't forget that, I told you yesterday what the plan was, do you really still not know? I'll send you an e-mail because I have to GO! I'm going to be LAAAATTTEEE!

But then, bittersweet relief, I leave the house and go get my bike in the garage. Glenn organized our garage for us last month, but it didn'tentirely stick.

I convince my husband to take a picture of me starting off on my morning commute. Sometimes I walk to work, and call a friend in a more advanced timezone. But today I'm running late, so I'm riding my bike.

I wave "goodbye" to the children. Like the Halloween decorations? It's just a sticker, bloggers, don't get excited!

I ride to work, park my bike, and approach the side door of Student Health. I don't go in the front because it says "Cheney International Center" . That's a rough way to start the morning- and it's farther away from the bike rack.

The campus is really pretty this time of year, and surprisingly not yet covered in snow!

Here's my desk. I have a laptop which I bring into patient rooms with me, and a desktop so I can look things up, monitor my schedule, check my e-mail, glance at the New York Times, and play music on Pandora if I get bored of charting. Lots of ways to procrastinate, but if I procrastinate too much I don't get to go home to my children on time...so I generally keep it under control. Like my Muppets mousepad? According to my students, the mousepad is so "retro" that it is "cool" again. I'm not so sure I care what an 18 year old thinks is cool anymore, since 36 is *SO* much better, but I do find it amusing to get this type of comment!

I still have this old-fashioned day planner bigger than a house. ( And check out that telephone that has a cord on it! Budget student health office!!! Oh, and check out that PRINTER...it's very very large! ) I leave my planner in my office and keep the plans for one or two days in my head. This leads to some mistakes, and only that which is important gets remembered. Sean and I coordinate schedules day-of and over e-mail. It's complicated and sometimes left to chance with so many schedules

Thanks to Oma, I have some great photos of my children in my office now. I love it when my patients are shocked to hear I have three children! I think this is funny. I am also shocked!

Desk drawer, where I found the camera several days later.

This is one of my two patient rooms. I have one general exam room, and one devoted almost entirely to gynecologic issues. The nurses and I call it the "sex room", but not in front of patients. The exam rooms are small and, although recently rennovated, totally out of style. I need to work on putting some nice posters in them. I couldn't figure out why I had a large bruise on each thigh until I realized that I was hitting one thigh on the supply cabinet on the way in the room and the other thigh on the supply cabinet on the way out! I keep hoping I'll learn not to do that soon!

I'm trying to take a picture of "Doctor Hartman" in the mirror! Those blue things on the shelf are "barf bags". Nice.

Here are my credentials, my shrine to myself, my dust collection, my storage location for bulky diplomas I'd prefer not to have in my closet. I straightened the frames up after I took the picture!

Then my first patient of the day came and I stored my camera in my desk drawer, only to find it several days later.