Doctor on the Side

Ciao, people!  I’ve been away from the blog for almost two weeks because I went straight from working on the wards to doing back-to-back shifts at the emergency department without any breaks!  It was A LOT of fun, but my body is really appreciating its first full weekend off in 2 months

A lot of our family members have been asking me for pictures of our home, so I came up with an idea to show it to you—little by little (it’s more exciting that way).  It’ll be a new series of posts called “Mi casita,” and each will showcase a different room and all the things that make it “our favorite room in the house.”  With all the madness sweeping the northeastern U.S. because of Hurricane Irene (which turned out to be nothing more than a windy tropical storm here in Boston), Jeffrey and I have spent most of our Sunday enjoying the sound of wind rustling through the trees from our sunroom.  So what better way to introduce you to our casita than through our wonderful sunroom!  Welcome…

We like to affectionately refer to it as the “Gramma Maxine Sunroom,” as most of what we have in there is thanks to her!  Example: the awesome round table and chairs we inherited from her when she moved to a smaller place.  Merlin enjoys relaxing under it.

Whenever Jeffrey and I spend a morning together at home, we make it a point to have breakfast here and watch people go by as they walk their dogs.  The table also holds the peg solitaire game we inherited with it, seen here.  In the far corner is Jeffrey’s steel drum, which Gramma Maxine gave him when he graduated high school.  As I type, he is practicing on it… and people walking their dogs outside keep looking up at us to see where the unusual tropical sound is coming from!

You can also see my “The Count of Monte Cristo” book on the table.  I’m almost done with it!  Only 200 pages left!  It’s the best book ever written, and the unabridged version is even better than the abridged version I fell in love with my freshman year of high school.  I started it in January, so it’s about time I finish it!  It’s taken me an embarrassingly long time to get through it.  In my defense though, going on residency interviews and then actually starting residency sometimes gets in the way of random fun reading!

Speaking of reading, the sunroom also has a special reading corner…

Nothing like a papasan chair, a basket of warm blankets, and a bookshelf filled with art and travel books to inspire some good reading!  The best part is being surrounded by windows instead of walls, and the fact that the windows are in turn, surrounded by huge trees hundreds of years old.  I periodically sprinkle wildlife feed around the house, and enjoy watching birds, squirrels, and chipmunks fighting over the feast from the comfort of our papasan chair.

But my absolute FAVORITE part about the sunroom is my Mexican tin star hanging above the reading corner.  I had to beg Papi to buy it for me during our family trip to Chiapas, Mexico over 10 years ago.  He was reluctant to buy it for me, saying that it was going to live in a closet without ever getting hung up.  Well, he was—for the most part—correct.  But I won and got him to buy it for me anyway.

More than 10 years later, my star has made the journey from the southeasternmost tip of Mexico to the northeasternmost tip of the United States, and finally brightens my life with its colorful glass marbles.  Gracias Papi!  For buying it for me, and for hanging it up!

As Nate Berkus says: “Your home should rise up to greet you.”  Does your home do that?  Our sunroom does!

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