{Style} San Francisco: Snow-free style

The Chemist and I are going to San Francisco next week, and while it may not be as sunny and mildly warm as it usually is this time of year, it is hands-down better than the never-ending winter we're still experiencing here in Minnesota. We still have snow in our lawn and, given that we have only lived here since January, we're not yet entirely convinced that there is a yard under all that snow at all.

But I digress. One of the things I am most looking forward to in SF is the opportunity to wear some more seasonable clothing that I just can't yet wear here. Here are some spring outfit ideas, mixable and ideal for packing.

1) J. Crew: Weekend Dress in Dark Navy. One thing

I'm digging the most this season is the combination of navy and taupe. It's a mix of neutrals that manages to feel more fresh than navy and white. I finally purchased the navy weekend dress fro

m J. Crew I was obsessing over, and quickly took to styling it with some taupe pieces.

2) Lands End Canvas:

Heritage cardigan in Maplewood. It's a classic, to be sure, but a nice departure from some of the more embellished pieces out there. I plan on wearing jewelry with this outfit, so it's best to

keep the cardigan simple.

3) Target: Kachiri Leather Americana Boots in Taupe; Myka Suede Wedge in Taupe (stores only). These are two comfortable options to pair with this dress, very walkable yet more stylish than most "travel-friendly" shoes.

4) Gap: Long and Lean Jeans in Dark Wash. Call me a traditionalist, but I cannot, will not get behind skinny jeans, jeggings or other abominations of fabric. The fact is, I have hips, I have a waist, and I am short. Not one of the those features is amenable to those kinds of jeans, so a simple dark wash with a straight or boot opening is the most flattering. End of rant.

5) J. Crew Factory: Papillon Waterfloral Pastiche Blouse (left). I love this overtly feminine blouse, particularly under a blazer, but since it's not quite in my price range, I went for the much more affordable cap-sleeved blouse in the same fabric (cotton candy), just with more simple lines.

6) J. Crew: Velvet Eden Blazer in Soft Blossom (left). I bought this on eBay as a nice alternative to the jean jacket for avoiding a spring chill*. It's not as versatile as a jean jacket, but it does work well with the blush/blossom/cream color palette I'm assembling for spring.

7) Old Navy: Ruffled Dress in White (below). The title of this is a bit misleading, as it's actually a light, warm floral on a white background. I just ordered this yesterday and haven't seen it in person yet, so the jury is still out. But I'm hopeful, as I would love to pair it with the Eden blazer.

8) Old Navy: Tiered Chiffon Tank in Cream (color not available online; left). I bought this late last summer, and while it struck me as too long initially, it shrunk after a few washes and fits better now. Again, this looks great with the Heritage cardigan or Eden blazer above, with a flash of shine with the Mesh Scarf necklace.

9) J. Crew: Mesh Scarf Necklace (both images). It's sold out online, but I recently found this for a steal at my local J. Crew retail store. I have it in both the gunmetal and antique gold finishes, and they're a nice accent that elongates what might otherwise be a short line in a scoopneck shirt.

I could go on . . . and probably will later (also up: embellishing your own t-shirt to stylish---and cheap!---effect). But the touch of spring in these ideas is enough to tide me over until we fly to California next week.

Signed,

Majin, MD

*That is, if it EVER gets spring-like around here.

{Home} Shalom, New Home. There are cupcakes.

We had an open house yesterday, and about 30 people came. It was a nice time, but the job of the hostess is always a busy one, so it was difficult to actually having meaningful conversations with anyone.

Opening our house to people who have never seen it before always reveals new things I hadn't considered. We got high praise on our decor and furniture, but the best thing was probably that we could fit that many people in our house without it feeling uncomfortable . . . and without people sitting on the floor.

The other takeaway? People love cupcakes. Duh. But they particularly loved the decoration on the cupcakes. I made a few dozen cupcakes in two flavors---chocolate and yellow cake---and they were all eaten by our guests. The chocolate cupcakes had chocolate frosting piped on with a ribbed tip in straight, vertical lines, with one horizontal line at the top and bottom, to resemble a section of fence. I then placed flower-shaped candy pieces on the lower part of the fence, and piped green frosting in to create a garden effect. And viola: flowers-on-a-fence cupcakes.

I also made yellow cupcakes with vanilla frosting colored green. I used a multi-opening tip with a thick vanilla frosting (the very-easy Martha Stewart recipe worked well) to create grass on the top of each cupcake; it was important the that frosting was thick enough to stand on its own, as a thinner icing or frosting would have just turned to mush. I then used the same flower-shaped candies to create a flat flower bed on each cupcake. They're simple ideas, but create just enough interest to match my spring theme for the party. They vaguely resembled the cupcakes above, with flowers instead of ladybugs.

If only I had the foresight to take pictures of my creations.

Oh well, next time. And "next time" will be for the child's birthday party I'm planning in April. And there WILL be pictures of that event.

Signed,

Majin, MD

{Medicine} Make me a perfect match!

Yesterday was Un-Match Day in the world of medical students and recent graduates. For me, it was possibly the biggest day of my career; certainly to date, possibly ever.

As I explained in a previous post, the Match is the system by which medical residency positions are assigned. During Match Week (which is this week), the results are distributed in a painfully slow, unnecessarily dramatic fashion.

On the Monday of Match Week, the NRMP (the organization that runs the Match) distributes an email to all applicants indicating whether or not they matched into a residency program . . . but it doesn't tell you which residency program. The purpose of this email is to give those who did not match a chance to find a remaining, unfilled residency program in which they may take a position prior to Match Day. This process is called "the Scramble," and takes place during Tuesday and Wednesday of Match Week.

Thursday of Match Week is, of course, Match Day. At that time, applicants finally find out where they will be spending the next 3-5 (or more) years of their life. In some cases, when applicants have applied to more than one specialty (say, neurology and internal medicine), they also find out that day what kind of doctor they will be.

It's a big deal. But not for me.

I only applied to one specialty. And within that one specialty, while I applied to many programs, I only ended up ranking one. I did this because The Chemist and I are older than many medical students and have established a life and a home and his career here, and we simply aren't in a position to move across the country for a few years. People sometimes call this "suicide matching", since it's an all-or-nothing scenario. I either get a residency position, or I don't.

I am happy to say that I did. So while Match Day hasn't happened yet, there aren't many surprises in store for me.

At least there better not be!

Signed,

Majin, MD

{Medicine} Matchmaker, matchmaker

Ah, Match Day. A day that strikes fear and excitement in the heart of every new physician, yet sounds like a kindergarten event.

For those that don't know, Match Day is a yearly event in March in which graduating medical students find out where they will be spending the next few (or several) years of their life as a resident physician. The process leading up to Match day is a long and seemingly arbitrary one, which most people aren't exposed to and don't understand. Hell, even my grasp of the concept is tenuous, and I just went through it!

The first part of the residency application process is similar to the process of applying for college or medical school itself. The summer before your last year of medical school, you research and apply to residency programs in your chosen field around the country (or, if you're like me, keep things local and choose more than one field to apply to) via a centralized application service called ERAS. Then, also like other application processes, the programs choose a certain number of applicants to interview.

Then things diverge. Rather than simply choosing the program you want to attend, or waiting for the programs make offers to you (after all, this is a job, not really "school"), you enter the Match process. In short, you make a list of programs at which you were interviewed in the order in which you want to attend them, called the Rank Order List. Similarly, programs rank their interviewees in order as well. The highest "match" (hence the term) is where you go. Period. No competing offers. No declining acceptance. No changing your mind.

And people wonder why most physicians are crazy.

On "Match Day" everyone traditionally attends a ceremony in which they make small talk, hear a bunch of speeches about how great medicine is, and eventually open an envelope that reveals the program they matched to. As I am the Stay At Home Doctor, I will not be attending this ceremony, and will instead wait the extra hour at home and find out online. I took the slow route through medical school (I'll explain later) and graduated in December rather than May, so I'm matching one year later than my classmates and don't know most people going through the match this year.

Needless to say, Match Day is coming up soon. In fact, it's on Thursday, St. Patrick's Day.

And I'm Irish.

Please let these be good signs . . . (there is more than a hint of desperation here).

Okay, that's all from me for now, lest I spiral into a hypertensive crisis and panic attack just thinking about Match Day.

Signed,

Majin, MD

{Home} A Sewing Machine, An Anvil and Math

The Chemist and I recently purchased our first home in a nice little neighborhood in the city of St. Paul. We are now just two blocks of a lake and regional park in a 1.5 story house built in 1950, but fully renovated in 2003-2007. We are only the third owners of the home in its 60 years, as the owners we purchased it from, in turn, purchased from the family that built the home (more on that later).

Like many homes in our neighborhood, there is a half-story upstairs that originally was nothing but attic space. The previous owners finished the space, and added about 800 square feet in the process, including a master bed and bath, a sitting room and a walk-in cedar closet (love!).

As such, the walls only reach a height of about 4 feet before giving way to the sloped roof. I like this feature in the bedroom as a whole, as it makes things feel cozy in an otherwise large room. But it becomes a pain when dealing with one surprising feature of the home: the shower.

Yes, our master bathroom has a tub and shower with a sloped wall/ceiling. Not a huge problem, as there is a full stall-size space with a normal, non-sloped ceiling height, but the issue is how in the world I am supposed to hang a shower curtain.

Enter Ikea, Target, Jo-Ann fabrics and a little someone called Pythagoras.

I did some online searching before we moved in, trying to find a solution to this problem. The best I could find was the suggestion of using suction cups to hang a plastic curtain, and manually moving them to get in and out. For someone who fancies herself (right or wrong) as a bit "Martha Stewart, MD" this wouldn't fly. Then I remembered some curtain wiring I had purchased---but never used---from Ikea a few years ago for an ill-fated decoration project in my studio apartment.

And I came up with what you see above. Both more functional and more fully-fashioned than the suction cup idea, I'm pretty proud of the end result.

So, here's how it's made:

What you need:

-Standard full-size fabric shower curtain and plastic shower curtain liner

-Shower curtain rings of your choice (full rings---not hooks---work better in this case, though)

-Dignitet curtain wire from Ikea (one full wiring set, one or more corner pieces)

-Fast-set, water-resistant epoxy

-Masking or duct tape

-Steel tape measure

-Large eyelets with anvil (found---for cheap---at Jo-Ann fabrics)

-Small (approx 5 mm) eyelets

-Thread to match curtain

-Ever-so-rudimentary sewing abilities and supplies (it's not scary, I promise)

Here's how it's done:

1) Measure the tallest and shortest heights of the walls of the shower, as well as the overall width. Measure the length of the sloped portion of the ceiling. If there is an un-sloped portion (or a portion that is taller than the shower curtain and will not require an angled section, as mine above), measure the width of that as well.

2) Spread out the shower curtains flat on the floor, and apply those measurements and mark with pins.

3) Take the time to use the pythagorean theorem (yea!) to make sure your measurements are the same. Our roof is a convenient 45-degree angle, so there weren't many surprises.

4) Cut away the unused portion of the fabric shower curtain, leaving 1" seam allowance (nothing fancy, just make sure you have enough extra fabric to turn under later.

5) Cut the plastic liner similarly, but don't worry about seam allowance (duh).

6) Fold the extra 1" of fabric under, and sew to hide the unfinished edges. Again, no need to be picky, shower curtains are meant to bunch up a little, so it won't be noticeable.

7) Again, bust out the pythagorean theorem to determine the spacing of the holes for your rings on the fabric curtain, so things look about evenly spaced compared to the un-sloped portion. For example, the curtain rings were 6" apart in the un-sloped portion, and since we have a 45-degree roof angle, each ring on the diagonal was 8.5" apart.

8) Follow the instructions of your eyelet kit, and mark the areas to place the eyelets and cut small holes in the fabric. Push the longer half of each eyelet through the holes.

9) Insert eyelets in all holes according the instructions. Use a good, solid hammer or mallet and when they say to use the anvil on the concrete, they aren't kidding. I tried doing this on a different flooring surface, and it didn't work. As soon as I moved to the concrete basement, that's when the magic happened. So to speak.

10) Time to install the wiring anchors. Plan out where you want your anchors to go, making sure they are aligned at the same depth relative to the front of the shower. I only placed one corner piece to hold up the wire along the slope of the roof, but I plan to install two more, just to keep the wiring taut.

11) If you're brave enough to drill into tiles to install the wiring pieces, go for it. I, on the other hand, was afraid the tiles would crack, so I used epoxy instead. It's important to use the right type, so I double-checked with our local hardware store that it would work for this purpose. Even though I used fast-setting epoxy, I still used duct tape to hold the pieces in place while they set.

12) Give the epoxy a full 24 hours to cure before installing the wiring. Install the wiring per the package instructions, except before tightening down the sloped portion, slide on enough small eyelets to accompany the number of ring holes you made.

13) After the wiring has been tightened down, slide one eyelet up the wire to where the first curtain ring will go (the same distance where you made the first hole). Use a pair of pliers to clamp the eyelet firmly onto the wire, leaving most of the eyelet up to create a ridge for to keep the shower curtain ring from sliding down. Repeat with all small eyelets.

14) Hang your fabric shower curtain, and punch holes with the shower curtain rings to hang the liner as well.

15) Marvel in your ability to use an anvil. And a sewing machine. And math.

Really, it's not that hard. Really. And the end product is much nicer than any suction cup-based idea.

Regarding style, I went with a simple cream-colored waffle textured curtain from Target. It is a nice, clean feel for the bathroom, but just to mix things up, my next project will be to make some "swappable accents" of color (as coined by The Chemist). Stay tuned for that.

Signed,

Majin, MD

{Style} In the Navy

One of my greatest obsessions that has nothing to do with medicine is online shopping. During medical school, I didn't have time (or money) to actually go to the stores of my heart's desires, so I would peruse the online offerings of my favorite retailers. Now that I have a *tiny* bit of disposable income, the obsession has grown.

However, there are still some items out of my immediate reach, so for now I'm still relegated to lusting after them*. Currently, I'm not-so-secretly in love with the "Weekend Dress" from J. Crew. I've been on the lookout for a navy dress for some time, as a nice alternative to the seemingly endless stream of black and gray in my closet. What I like about this one are the texture and that it's similar to a shirtdress without being too deliberate (like having an exaggerated full skirt).

I'm also in love with taupe as a nice accent to navy. There's a pair of wedge heels from Target, Myka in Taupe, that would work nicely with this for everyday wear (but isn't yet available online, only in stores). For something a little more lofty, I also love the suede heels from Land's End Canvas in Maplewood.

I tend to keep accessories minimal, but since spring is a LONG way off where I live, a cardigan is a foregone conclusion. I have a great square scarf that would be a nice accent to a dress like this, but sometimes a dress just calls for jewelry. In this case, I plan on pairing a neutral cardigan with a longer necklace, to better elongate this dress. I love--and own--the Mesh Scarf Necklace in from J. Crew, and I recently bought a pair of similarly-finished drop earrings from Target to accompany it.

I still can't decide if it needs a real belt (the thin drawstring just isn't doing it for me), but I can't decide the type: skinny? Nah. Wide? Too deliberate. Multi-buckle? Hmm . . .

Okay, end of dream sequence.

Signed,

Majin, MD

*I am pleased to report that The Chemist has given me a J. Crew gift card for this very purchase for International Women's Day (so he says). It's things like this that make me appreciate the fact that he works for Russians, who love them some secular holidays. As you were.

{Crafting} Child's Birthday Invitations

Despite the fact that I live in the Midwest and am nearly 30, I do not have any children. The Chemist and I are fine with this for now, and do plan to have children after we are married next year, but I still enjoy spending time with my friends and their children. Call it practice, call it "birth control," call it whatever you like, there's always something to be learned from seeing your peers with kids.

My favorite kids in the world belong to my dear friend Jolene. They are Max, age 5; Grace, 26 months; and James, 6 weeks. Max's 6th birthday is in April, so Jolene and I are planning his birthday party at my new house, since they do not have a yard in their new home in the city.

Today, I began the preliminary planning and crafting for the occasion. I LOVE hosting parties, and making invitations and decorations myself. It enables me to bypass the conventional cartoon themes and try something a little more interesting (and palatable). For Max's birthday, I'm trying out an owl theme, done in brown, lime green, teal and golden orange. A little retro but a lot of fun. The sample invitation is shown below.

Here's how it's made:

-I used pre-folded cards from a craft store in a neutral palate of colors that fits with the theme; it's easier to find envelopes that fit if you buy pre-folded cards, but the style options are more limited, so it's just as easy to cut and score your own cards to fit existing envelops if you're so inclined.

-The stamps were purchased cheaply as a set (for around $3), and were arranged without the wording (the "guess who" comes later) on a large clear stamping block and lime green chalk-ink was used, which gives the stamp image more texture, on matte, flat brown paper. I also immediately put flocking on the still-wet image, in a tone that matched the underlying ink, so it's less noticeable if the flocking accidentally rubs off.

-The wording was applied to a separate stamping block, and this time I used a turquoise blue ink, again in a matte chalk texture.

-Inside, I used small brads in a faux oil-rubbed bronze finish to tack a strip of ribbon to the top, just for a bit of interest. I like this detail, because it provides some texture without making the invitation so thick that it requires exorbitant postage.

-For the text of the invitation, I used a stamp that allows me to fill in the details of the invitation. I used a chocolate brown pigment ink pad, which has a longer drying time that enabled me to apply a clear embossing powder, one specifically designed for this kind of detail and text. After using the heat gun on the powder, the embossed finish gave the stamped surfaces a nice, glossy, raised texture that will not blend in too much with the written text to be added later.

-All paper was cut with decorative shears with a "postage" pattern. They're an easy way to dress up the appearance of the paper, and they camouflage any uneven or skewed edges. They're readily available at craft stores, and come in a variety of patterns; not just "pinking" shears anymore!

The other half of the inside of the invitation will have another owl of a different design, with more details about the event. But that will come later.

I'm still working on more additions to this theme, so we'll see what I come up with as we get closer to April.

Signed,

Majin, MD