August 29, 2016

The Alternate Ending

Saturday night was definitely not supposed to turn out like that! Scott and I and our two older kids hadn’t even made it to dinner when our poor babysitter back home was texting, asking how to troubleshoot the alarm that was going off. Our sweet sitter walked all over the house, pushing buttons and checking doors and smoke detectors. No fires. No broken windows. Just a loud alarm. We were sitting in traffic downtown, totally unaware that there was a Colts pre-game...

August 19, 2016

You can’t win a gold medal everyday

Most of us are watching (at least bits and pieces of) the Olympics. We stand witness to record breakers, medal takers, and status quo shakers. Athletes amaze us with their intense focus and tenacity. And overcome with pride, we all tear up when we see our flag raised, in honor of our champions. But we have to know that even those world-class athletes don’t have gold medal performances everyday. I went for a run last night. But about 2 miles...

August 6, 2016

Real Deadlines

I have had just about enough of this week. Getting four kids ready for school, in a new school, is wearing me out. That sucking sound? Yeah, that’s the audible hemorrhage from our checkbook…new clothes, shoes, and backpacks; computers, pencils, and Kleenex tissues…yes it specified Kleenex tissues. By Monday night, I could be heard saying, “Is this week over yet?” My car was at the dealer for an oil change, the dog was incarcerated at the vet for the weekend so we could go to...

July 18, 2016

The Fullness of Silence

“Why do I always feel like I am being interrupted? I can’t even finish a sentence?!?” The response: “Because you are always talking. No one can get a word in!” Scott, spoken in his best, I love you and I’ll always love you and I can be honest with you because I know you want me to be voice. Dang! He. Is. Right. With social media, we all have a voice about everything. And we keep “talking” and tweeting and blogging. We don’t...

July 6, 2016

Eyes bigger than time…The Buffet Phenomenon

Seriously. I want to do it all. Every morning, I get up, make my coffee, read, and head into work. I sit in the morning check-out conference with my Handy-Dandy notebook, full of Post-It Note lists of all the things I want to do. We have discussed this before. I want to schedule appointments (eye doctor and PCP and dog grooming), work on my research, arrange for a family picture, apply for a grant, go to the grocery; I want...

June 21, 2016

These (weary) feet were made for walking

These feet were made for walking…12,234 steps on call last night, all after a painful 5 mile walk/run in the scorching heat yesterday morning. (Touché: Both Jack and Scott told me not to run at 11am.) Taking the stairs more often than not; walking the long, long underground corridor from my office building to the ED; to the OR-for a somewhat intense case; to the call room. And back to my office this morning. I didn’t mean to be so...

June 9, 2016

Running Away…

Sometimes, I don’t know if I am running away from something or running towards something.–Jennifer Hartwell I had this discussion with a friend last summer when I was pouring over the decision to leave the old job and change trajectory in my career. Probably way too much overthinking going on. Probably reading into things too much. Cause, well, that’s what I always do. The pros and the cons. The good and the bad. The options. The drawbacks and the downsides....

May 31, 2016

Which moments matter?

So…the movers finally showed up. We kinda have a plethora of worldly possessions because #fourkids, #married18years, #ikeepthingsjustincase. In typical Hartwell fashion, we allowed NO buffer of time to close on each house, move, settle, and go on vacation. We reserved the beach house before I even had a start date for my new job. And when we got a full price offer on the old house, we couldn’t let it go just because they wanted to close two days before...

May 24, 2016

The Choice of Hope

We powered through rounds this morning, knowing we needed to see all of our patients and carry out most of the work of the day before 1pm, so we could turn our attention to the outpatient trauma clinic. My team did a great job, changing dressings, ordering tests, talking with families, writing notes. Folks who were ready to go home had discharge instructions written and prescriptions printed in record time. And our hard working intern even found the time to...

May 15, 2016

Please, don’t call me a soccer mom!

After surveying the situation; the arrangements for the weekend; the logistics; a review of the calendar, the weather, the finances, and a map, it was decided that I would be the one to take Allie and her teammate to the soccer tournament in Cincinnati this weekend while Scott stayed home with all of the boys. While it was tempting (for about 1.3 minutes) to get two hotel rooms and have the whole family come, one flashing thought of my two youngest sons sitting running around the...