Merry Christmas from the Fort!

Since Matt and I aren't spending Christmas together we decided to have Christmas come to the Fort a little early. So yesterday we cleaned up the downstairs, got a little dressed up and had a wonderful Christmas dinner. I made the most delicious penne a la vodka with garlic bread and Matt chose a fantastic bottle of wine and made us a fire. We had such a lovely evening that culminated in our little present exchange. I got Matt Spore and the first expansion pack that I didn't even know existed until Saturday. I didn't give him both right away though, I gave him the game and then later when he had begun to install it the box gave birth to the second all of a sudden. Matt did such a great job of presents, he's really good at it. He gave me the most beautiful pair of silver dangle-y earrings that are in the shape of pine cones which I have worn today and make me feel all winter like. He also got me THE cutest bag. It looks like a mini bowling ball bag, its even made by Brunswick, and it holds my ds. Or rather it would if I had a dslite. I can still get my older ds in there if I try but I just love it soooo much. Finally he got me one of the greatest games ever made! Dragon Quest IV has been on the top of my list of favorite games since my childhood. Now I have something to play on the very long plane rides to LA on Friday. Thank you Sweetie!

I am trying to keep up with last year and so I have dubbed this week Christmas baking week. The lab simultaneously loves and curses it. This morning I made dark chocolate peppermint brownies. mmmmmmm, I love peppermint! I'm really excited too because Matt and I are having Dan and Caroline over for dessert on Wednesday. I haven't completely decided what I'm making but it will include Mexican hot chocolate.

Thanksgiving (wasn't that long ago)

I should be doing something constructive around the house right now but I was reminded today that my life must be incredibly boring since I no long post about it.  Well...thats true but I'll bore you all anyways. 

I finally remembered to snag Matt's camera and get the pictures off of it which, as it turns out, there are only a couple so I will have to bug other people to get pictures.  Thanksgiving was a lovely day, it is one of my favorite holidays because it centers almost 100% around food.  Yay food!  As always I made way too much food but this time I also encouraged others to make way too much food.  Since we were having mostly internationals over for dinner I made all the traditional foods; mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, candied yams, turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie.  mmmm, I'm almost hungry again.  I also whipped up a fantastic cheese platter, because really if there isn't a cheese platter, why bother?  I actually didn't make everything.  Nathan made the 10lbs of potatoes and the giant casserole of stuffing and Matt made the gorgeous turkey.  I had planned to make it myself but in hindsight watching the Modern Marvels about turkeys on Thanksgiving Eve was not my best move ever.  Luckily Matt is a trooper and stepped up to job.  I read an article in Bon Appetit that said that brining is so out of fashion now and all the cool people are salting their turkeys.  Since I'm a cool person I had to salt ours, plus its about twenty million times easier than brining.  I made a tasty salt rub with lots of herbs and Matt I coached him how to wash the turkey and then salt it but I really couldn't bring myself to handle the bird after watching how amazing they are. .  I guess the magazine people were right because everyone who had had turkey before said it was the best they'd ever had.  Catarina, who dislikes turkey, even asked if she could get some to take home.  Go Team Matt and Kelly!  It was a super exhausting endevour but everyone had a great time except for Catarina's husband who had what she called a Portuguese super cold.  I put two pictures of Matt's amazing turkey and one where you can kind of see the apartment and the awesome pumpkin pie I made.

Reviews

One of my loyal readers has pointed out that I have yet to publish reviews on the two live shows that Matt and I have recently seen. So I'll put off the Thanksgiving post and let you all know what I thought.

First, we went to see DINOSAURS!!!, for Matt's birthday. I saw the videos on youtube and I thought that I was prepared for the amazing-ness but I was wrong. The dinos were life sized, which, when it comes to the bigger ones means they were towering over us. They were also ridiculously loud. In a good way. It was way too much fun. The best part was when the boy next to me reassured me not to worry because they were not "real dinosaurs". It was quite adorable, even more so when I thanked him for his knowledge and he wanted to let me know that it was twice as impressive since he was only in the fourth grade so just imagine how much smarter he was going to get. lol!

The next show we went to was The Tran-Siberian Orchestra. I can't even put into words. No wait, I can. It was kind of like going to an 80's hair metal band concert. There were pyrotechnics and lasers and it was really loud. The woman playing the violin was simply amazing. How she didn't get her hair caught in the violin or bow I will never know. She rocked it like she was playing a guitar and she ran all over the place. The show was about twice as long as we thought it was going to be. The first half was this really beautiful story about Christmas that made me cry. I really thought that was the whole show but then they came out and introduced the orchestra and started talking about the "second half". The second half was more of a rock concert, no narration. I completely recommend it if you can get tickets. Matt and I got t-shirts after the show. His has a castle high in the mountains and mine has an awesome wizard in it doing some cool magicky stuff. Both full of awesomeness.

I'm not dead yet

I know so many of you have been wondering, and the answer is: I'm not dead yet.  I have been in bed for the better part of a week.  The doctor says that I have a very bad cold with a sinus infection.  Luckily, my voice has returned, which I'm sure Matt is go grateful for.  He has been the most wonderful nurse a girl could ask for.  I'm all better yet but I'm getting there.  We're starting to count down the days until Thanksgiving.  Matt has wisely vetoed some of the things that I wanted to do for the holiday.  I get a little ambitious and with the cold I have gotten behind in the planning.  He's right though, as long as the food is good and the house is clean, the rest doesn't really matter.  I'll post our menu later this week.  I think we're going to go to Walmart on Friday to do the grocery shopping.  Ugh, stupid sinus infection is making me dizzy.  Later!

VOTE ALREADY!!!

Matt and I voted last Tuesday and we have a little two person election party planned for this evening. I'm just so excited about everything! For those of you who haven't yet, GO VOTE ALREADY!!!

I promised a Halloween post. We spent the first part of the evening at Matt's boss's party. Matt went as a judge and, after looking through my closet, I decided to go as a 1940's pin-up girl. I'm not sure how great of an idea that was but oh well. We spent the rest of the night at Jess and Jacob's playing heroscape. It was boys vs. girls and while the boys technically won I think it was a moral victory for the ladies. Jess and Jacob went with a super-nerdy set of matching costumes, they went as their Rock Band characters. lol

Bi-naversary! UPDATE!!!!

I can hardly believe it but today is Matt and my two year anniversary. Wow. It has been two fantastic years with someone I really love. I got him a nifty present that I won't disclose yet because I haven't given it to him. Matt made reservations for us to go to the Melting Pot. mmmm, cheese.... *wipes away drool* We're both very excited about it. He was really surprised how much he liked it last time we went and we've both been looking forward for a sufficient reason to go.

I'm also feeling very proud of myself because we did our part to help fix the country and went to vote today. The nice kids running the Obama booth gave me a sticker and a veggie burrito from Chipotle. Voting always makes me feel so warm and fuzzy. I encourage everybody to do the same. I guess even if you want to vote for someone who thinks my job is pointless and a poor use of money. How lame is it that I study colon cancer in fruit flies, I kid you not.

UPDATE!!!! In case anyone was worried by my twitter updates. I did not intentionally stab myself with a fondue fork. I was trying to spear some asparagus while holding it and went through the asparagus and into my hand. Not too bad though, it is almost completely healed. I did give Matt his present. It was a large rectangular frame that has glass on both side and inside of it i put three vintage (ca 1920-1940) Notre Dame postcards. Two of them are linen and have that look like the old Technicolor movies since they were colored in afterward. Matt loved it. I was even more excited by his present to me. He got us two tickets to go see the Trans Siberian Orchestra just before Thanksgiving. w00t!!! I've wanted to see them for so long but it has never worked out before. Check out their website (link above) to see their awesomeness.

State Fair!!!!

I promised I would get to it and now that I have tidied up the living room a little bit I can.  On Wednesday Matt, Steph, Linda, Kuo-Chen (my super adorable rotation student from Taiwan) and I finally got to the always amazing NC State Fair.  Sure it meant having to leave work two hours early but it was darned worth it.  Let me just start by saying it was sooo cold out that night, Matt will laugh at my saying this but it was 48F.  I should have worn more layers.  Being a veteran of the fair, I took the lead and almost ran the whole way from the entrance to the roasted corn.  I can't even describe how much I love fair corn.  Maybe because its dipped in butter, maybe it is all the things that I sprinkle on it, who knows but it isn't the state fair with out it.  We munched our corn while viewing the display gardens because they are Linda's favorite part of the fair.  Afterwards we headed back into the fried food fray and began our decent into fried-ness.  In an effort to show Kuo-Chen everything that is right with American we might have gone a little over board with the food.  We ordered fried snickers, a blooming onion, fried mac and cheese (new this year).  Kuo-Chen got fried oreos, Dan (our lovely British friend and Kim's fiancé) got the fried pecan pie and ribbon fries for Kim.  Meanwhile, Steph was chowing down on a giant turkey leg.  I'd like to point out though that all food was bought for the purpose of sharing except for the giant turkey leg, that was all Steph.  After making all of that stuff disappear we decided that it was time for some veggies, fried veggies!  It is the state fair after all.  After the veggies and pickles were done, things were sitting heavy so it was time to check out some animals.  We wandered through the exhibits for a while and even got to pick up a baby duck when we realized it was time to head to Hogway Speedway.  Now, my dad pointed out that as a vegetarian I should probably object to the poor little animals being treated like this.  I'm not so sure though, they get treats at the end of the really short track...and they're so cute!  We managed to sneak in some fried cheese and ice cream, albeit separately before heading out.  You all might be surprised to hear that the cheese wasn't my idea.  I had explained it to Kuo-Chen earlier in the week and she was so amused by the idea that she insisted on trying it.  I was in a food coma the whole way home.  It is probably a good thing for my arteries that the state fair only comes once a year.

Dan enjoying his pecan pie

Kuo-Chen and the giant pumpkins which she found hilarious

Fried veggies and pickles

Matt and Steph sitting on a dumpster

Matt and I at the end

Happy Birthday Matt!!!!

I don't have time for a huge update.  We have pictures from the State Fair so I'm going to wait until I post those before I tell of the wonderousness that is the North Carolina State Fair.
It is Matt's birthday today!  Yay!!!  We're going to his favorite, Olive Garden, for dinner tonight.  I think we're both really looking forward to the free salad and bread sticks.  Matt and Dan are going to see the UNC vs. BC game tomorrow so it looks like I'll have a large block of time to do stuff tomorrow.  I'm really interested in going to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" on Sunday as a birthday treat.

Its been too long

I'm sorry its been so long.  I get to work with the plan of taking ten minutes to post and then start looking at what I need to do and forget about the blog.  Some of you may have noticed the new gadget on the left sidebar.  I've added twitter so that I can send mini-updates to the blog.  I know it is quite popular with the kids these days and this past weekend I've heard that NPR is now tweeting too.  Speaking of which they are doing their seasonal pledge drive right now.  I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to hold out before I send them money.  My immunity is running out plus, as Dave points out, we listen to it about ten hours a day.  I probably should send them something, they're wearing me down. 
Matt and I are (very) slowly finishing up the unpacking and organizing.  Pretty soon we will be able to start the decorating.  w00t!  Last year, at the after Halloween sale, I bought some cute little hand towels for the bathroom.  They are quite adorable in the downstairs bathroom.  We recently purchased a couple of Halloween themed kitchen towels at Target in their bargain area.  I keep teasing Matt that in a couple of years we will have a complete set of decorations for every holiday. 
We've unpacked nearly everything in the spare room now.  It has left us with a slightly disturbing discovery.  There is a 1.5' by 1.5' square on the floor that reeks of old lady perfume.  It is so gross!  We think that because we have always had boxes covering it up before we never noticed it.  Now that things in that room are almost done the smell is overwhelming.  I can only work in there for small bits of time because the odor gives me a headache.  Last night we poured baking soda all over it and I'm going to try and see it the smell is gone when I vacuum it up tonight, everybody cross your fingers.
Last but not least, since we have taken time off for weddings and whatnot this year and we'd like to be able to take time off for Christmas, neither Matt nor I are going home for Thanksgiving.  Instead we are going to be hosting a nice, quiet dinner at our new place this year.  Any family or friends who want to come are invited although being so far away I don't think we'll have many takers.  We are inviting a few local friends and judging by their responses so far we are having an international Thanksgiving.  So far those who have said they will come: Catarina and Nunu (Portugal), Mira (Germany), Kuo-Chen (Taiwan), Kim (Alabama) and Dan (England).  Two of the guests, Mira and Kuo-Chen, have never been to a Thanksgiving dinner.  Even better they have never eaten turkey.   So no pressure right?

Actually I believe it is pronounced "new-cle-ar"

I think I was raised by some pretty intelligent people.  I was raised with a definite left leaning philosophy but I was also taught to evaluate ideas and people based on the available information.  I never had anything against John McCain, I was never a crazy Obama fan either.  Having said that, I think John McCain has very quickly lost his mind over the time of this campaign.  Whatever made him think that Sarah Palin was a qualified running mate proves it.  The idea of that woman being a heartbeat away from the presidency is a truly frightening thought.  This whole idea of voting for her because, "Hey, she's just like me" is ridiculous.  I'm not qualified to be president, most people I know aren't.  Thats not bad, I'm not qualified to be a physician or a physicist either, some might argue I shouldn't be a scientist either but thats another story.  I can, however, name magazines and newspapers that I read, I can also tell you about several Supreme Court decisions that I don't agree with, and I don't count refueling stops as having visited a country.  *sigh*  Sorry this election is getting to me, I wish we could just elect Obama and stop having to hear about the idiocy of Sarah Palin.

Enough of that.  We have an action packed weekend.  Tonight we are headed over to Mike and Erin's for a little fondue and some gaming.  We don't get to see them often enough since they live aaaalllllllll the way over in Apex.  Back when I lived in LA or Vegas driving 45mins to see someone was nothing.  Now that everyone I know lives within ten minutes it seems really far.  Tomorrow is the semi annual wine show at Weaver Street.  We're going to that and then heading over to Steph and Linda's for some good food and good friends.

Ahh the weekend

It is not really early on a beautiful Saturday morning. Matt and I slept in this morning, until 8am!!! I know it was pretty excited myself. Luckily we still got to campus before the tailgaters arrived. With all the construction that is going on around our building it is nearly impossible to park here on game days. We're not going to the game but if I go to the hallway I can see the stadium and part of the field. I did three hours worth of dissections yesterday and was halfway through adding solutions to them to prepare them for my experiment when I dropped the tube and everything spilled out onto the floor. I decided that was a good time to go home. I guess that means I'll be redoing the dissections today, along with the western that I can't seem to escape.

Hi ho, hi ho, to live at work I go...

Sorry there hasn't been much in the way of updates lately. Our lives have kinda disappeared in a large amount of work. My schedule has been going something like this:
6:30am wake up
7:20am catch the bus
7:40am start work
7:00pm go home (finally)
7:15pm-9:00pm make dinner, eat dinner, clean up
9:00-10 or 10:30pm unpack/organize the house
10:30pm go to bed

I'm kind of exhausted. It also doesn't allow for a lot of time to just hang out with Matt which makes me sad. He gets up at 7am so I get up get ready and eat and we have time for a quick hug before I run to catch the bus and he hops in the shower. This will be the first weekend since we moved in that we have the whole time we can dedicate to unpacking and organizing the apartment. Well, sort of. We both need to work most of Saturday and ND plays on Saturday afternoon. Sadly they aren't broadcasting the game locally so depending on what Matt wants to do we might go to a bar to see the game, if we get done with work on time.

On an even sadder note than the Fighting Irish game not showing here. I found out yesterday why I was having problems with this experiment I've been trying to do forever. I was trying to take pictures of some fly embryos and look at a particular gene pattern in my mutant. I know what the pattern is supposed to look like like but I could never see it. It is supposed to outline all the cells and then show up in some cells so it looks like the animal is striped. I could never see this, for months I've been looking and only gotten meh pictures of it once. I finally sat down with someone else in the lab and we went over a bunch of things I could try. I was about to leave when Jess, the person I was chatting with about it, asked me how far I turned down the laser. The short answer is I don't and was never told that I should and the laser is basically killing the signal of before I can even see it. The laser is used to excite the special tags I put on the proteins I want to look at. At which point they glow different colors. If the laser is on too high, they will bleach and no longer light up. Here is the before and after I fixed the problem. Yay science!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!

I just wanted to take a few minutes out of my busy schedule to highlight one of the most important people in my life.  Today is my mom's birthday, I won't tell which one although I'm sure she won't mind.  My mom has been one of my biggest supporters throughout my life and is still one of my role models.  She was there for me during times in my life that seemed impossible to live through.  We have been a team for as long as I can remember.  She is an amazing woman.  She helps people past the point that most people would.  It never occurs to her to figure out what she can get out of it, only that someone is in need and she has the means to make their life a little bit better.  My mom has supported me through all my craziness, through my undergrad, and now that I'm three thousand miles away at grad school she is still there on a daily basis whenever I need something.  You couldn't ask for a better mother in life.  She's never been wishy-washy or a weak woman.  She has always been an example I could look at to see the kind of woman I want to be.  I love you Mom. Happy Birthday!

Goodbye Hanna!

Our plane to Chicago and subsequent drive to somewhere in Indiana is this evening. We'll be gone most of the weekend which means we will not get to meet Hurricane Hanna. According to news reports this morning she has turned and is heading straight for the Carolinas. Not to worry though, while I won't be here for my first real look at a hurricane the weather people say that Ike and Josephine are headed in the same direction. Ike is currently a category 4, yikes! Matt and I both managed to pack everything up last night and he'll be driving my car into work today. I'm kinda bummed though because we had such a hard time packing since most of our things are hidden in various random boxen throughout the apartment. I still don't know where my brown yarn that I just started a blanket with is. So I'm brining some other projects and several journal papers.

Rugs cover up the carpet

Not much unpacking got done yesterday due to an annoying sinus headache I developed just as I was leaving work. We did however stop by Steph and Linda's after dinner to pick up our fabulous new rug! They took a holiday trip to DC this past weekend and stopped all day Monday to wander through the mesmerizing halls of Ikea. Since they took the Jeep they offered to bring us back something for our new place. Matt and I had been discussing getting a cheap rug to cover up the hole in our living room carpet we jumped at the chance. We got the Jorun rug:I'm hoping to get a few things done tonight but our main focus should be on packing for our weekend trip. Steph has valiantly agreed to drop us off/pick us up from the the airport this weekend.

The marathon is over, at last!

The moving part of moving is officially over.  Matt and I finished getting everything out of my apartment Sunday.  We spent several hours Saturday and Sunday scrubbing the place down.  We dropped the keys off at the office Sunday night with only a few reminiscing tears.  It is wonderful to be done with it.  Now we are concentrating most of our free time on unpacking.  Although at the this point it is literally just unpacking.  It mostly consists of Matt and I opening boxes and then walking and dropping them into the room where they should live.  As soon as we can get the living room rid of boxes then we can start to organize the rest of the house.  It is just too much to try and do the whole apartment at the same time.   So, for the time being, the place looks a little chaotic.  We even left work "early" yesterday at 5pm and spent the night unpacking after we cooked dinner together.  Not much of a holiday but time well spent I think.
Its going to be a short week for us anyway since this weekend Matt's best friend is getting married.  We are flying out to Chicago on Thursday but the wedding is in Indiana.  We're both really sad because we have to cut our trip short.  We had originally intended to spend a few days in Michigan with Matt's family.  Due to my aforementioned new grueling work schedule and Matt's new project for Sushmita's paper we really just can't afford to take the time off.  Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.  I was really looking forward to seeing where Matt grew up and all the places he's told me about.  He's consoled me by pointing out that we have the rest of our lives to get there and that now is just not the right time.  I'm lucky that he's so practical. 

Here comes the last weekend

I'm very sorry that my posts have been erratic lately.  The combination of moving and craziness at work have kept me away.  Steph and  Linda helped us move almost all of the rest of the stuff left in my apartment last night.  We really owe them something nice, I offered to cook them a nice dinner.  Matt and I will get the last few boxen tonight and clean up tomorrow.  I would really like to turn in the keys tomorrow so I don't have to take time off on Monday to do it since the office isn't open on Sundays.  It all depends on how tired we are.  Going full out for a week and a half straight has a way of tiring a body out.  Back in June I won tickets to the first home football game of the season when I gave blood.  I also won a autographed UNC football from Butch Davis.  I called his office last week but they hadn't gotten the tickets yet and I'm hoping that with the game tomorrow they might have my tickets now.  On a kind of down note, I'm having a rough time at work right now.  I feel like I'm floundering.  I had a talk with Mark the other day and he says I need to start working a crazy amount of hours and on the weekends so that we can get this paper done.  I know I'm up to the effort (and so does he) but the implications are that I'm not going to have any down time for many months.  It makes me sad.

Sick and tired

It is nearly a week since my last post and as I look around the new apartment from our almost-too-big-to-get-into-the-apartment couch, I am glad that is almost over.  Matt and I moved him out of his place, no help in two evenings.  My place, not so easy.  Luckily we have a bunch of super awesome friends.  Steph and Linda came over to my place on Saturday to come help pack.  They are a powerhouse moving team.  I think we moved about 75% of my stuff before the four of us lost nearly all ability to move.  There was enough time to take a quick and much needed nap before showing and heading off to Jess and Jacob's.  They were having a get together that consisted of playing Rock Band and watching The Explorers and Flight of the Navigator.  There was a ton of amazing food including Jacob's Mexican thing that had beans and sour cream and doritios, the wonderful blue cheese that Dan brought, and the lovely caprese salad that Jess made with buffalo mozzarella.  mmmm, cheese... Sadly we only made it through the first movie before Matt and I were ready to pass out.  Sunday morning we took a quick jaunt to pick up the U-Haul.  We had originally planned to hire movers to get all of my incredibly heavy furniture out and in our new place but Dave, the post doc that I work with convinced me that him and a couple of other guys could handle it no problem.  So true to his word Dave showed up on Sunday along with Jacob, and Matt's brother Dan.  If you have ever seen all of my furniture you will understand that it was no small feat but the four guys managed to get it all into the U-Haul and into our new place in a matter of hours.  Not everything has made its way out of my apartment, largely due to the fact that I caught a rather nasty cold on Sunday that finally got me down enough that I had to take a down day.  I think it should be down by Thursday, I think.  Then we can get around to unpacking and making our new place feel like home.

It has begun...

It has officially started, Matt and I moved a good three quarters of his apartment last night after work. Steph and Linda came over for a while to help us figure out where all the furniture is going to go. They had several great ideas for our stuff, now we just have to get the furniture into the apartment. Matt was pretty impressed with my ability to keep it all together yesterday with only minimal food and asthma breaks. I was like a woman possessed. I'm just really excited about having this whole moving business over with. Tonight we finish moving Matt's stuff and cleaning up the apartment which shouldn't really take that long since he's only been there for eight months. I was a little peeved because they didn't give us new carpet like they said they were going to and there was no mantle. The carpet is fine except for the half dollar sized hole in the middle of the living room. I was thinking of getting an accent carpet for the living room anyways so its not a huge deal but still. Luckily I'm doing mostly fly work this week so maybe I can knock off half an hour early so we can finish moving/cleaning Matt's place today.

Its been so long

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. The wedding was a ton of fun as if you couldn't tell by the pictures. I love my family and miss them a ton so it was great being able to see them for a while. I think I ended up spending much of my time at Marc and Elisa's table. Except, of course, when I was strutting my stuff on the dance floor. Matt impressed several members of my family with his dancing skills. Every time he started to dance the flash bulbs went off. I'm trying to start a renewed effort to keep in touch better with my family. Hopefully, I will have the strength to keep it up.
The move begins today! As soon as work is over today Matt and I will begin to move into the new place. I'm super excited and slightly exhausted thinking about the move. Our goal is to try and get all of Matt's things moved before the weekend. I think it is an attainable goal. After that we are going to try and get all of my non-big furniture items (think books, clothes, chairs and whatnot). We're going to have to get a U-haul to move some of my furniture. It is quite lovely having real adult furniture until you have to move it. Luckily we have many helpful friends that have offered to help move us, including Dave who offered to leave work to do it *gasp!*

Wedding pics until I can actually post about it

Time flies, and so do we!

Trip day! Matt and I are all packed and are ready to get outta town. Our flight leaves at 6:19pm and we get to LA at 10:35 (LA time). It shouldn't be so bad since I have Matt there with me. I'm not sure what we'll do about eating. I probably can't wait until we get to Houston. I did bring lots of snacks with me and crafting stuff and lots of papers to read and summarize. Its going to be a blast. I can almost taste the In-N-Out, Jack in the Box, and super awesome Mexican food now.

Mark is on vacation for two weeks so we decided it was time for a lab lunch. I decided for everyone that we would go to Buns, a new burger place just off of Franklin. OMG!! I know that makes me sound like a teenager on myspace but it was Fantastic. They have three kinds of burgers including an in house made veggie burger. Then you have your selection of toppings where you can choose brie or gruyere cheese. MMMMMMM, I think I drooled a little bit. I do love cheese. It was great. Keiko is coming to visit next weekend and I promised/threatened that we were going.

One more quick thing before I run off to finish tidying up before I'm gone for a few days. Matt and I got to see our new apartment yesterday. Its kinda dirty right now but they are going to paint and put in new carpet and they should have it done in about a week. I'm very excited!

Sort of short week

UPDATE!! I posted the pictures. I'm sorry that the first hair picture looks like a myspace picture but the others Matt took made me look funny.

The weekend is over and even though it was quite busy I am sad to see it go. I haven't yet found a dress for Maureen's wedding and I'm not really sure when I can fit that in this week. I guess there is always Friday which is sad because I just wanted family time. Oh well. Derek's party was lovely, his house is so beautiful I could almost cry. Very yummy tasty snacks as well. I made s'mores brownies as per his request. I think it might be one of the best recipes I have. Then again I'm a bit of a sucker for s'mores. Steph has had really bad allergies this weekend so after helping us pick out a lovely new mirror, picture frame, and coasters she was not up to going to the party. :(

Matt and I spent the day at Kure Beach yesterday. It was so lovely and peaceful. Thankfully the water wasn't nearly as warm as I was told it would be. That would have been awful. It was just like I'm used to a little chilly at first but perfect after a couple of minutes. The part that I couldn't understand was the sand, it is so different from the beaches on the Pacific. Or at the least all the ones I've been to. The sand is more like very tiny, flat pebbles that stick to your body. UGH!!! I'm used to sandbox type sand. Fine, little...sand, you know. Sure sand usually gets everywhere but after you dry it is supposed to just brush right off. I ended up having to scrub the sand off me when we go home last night.Matt's favorite picture, you have to look closely at the sign to see why

I'm leaving work early (don't worry I got here very early today, I beat everyone else by nearly two hours!) I'm getting my haircut and goodness knows that always takes about four hours. If it goes well I'll post a picture later of my new 'do. I'll try and post some pics from the beach too. Check back later!

Another busy weekend

We have another busy bee weekend planned. It is the annual tax free weekend. I'm not really sure we'll be taking advantage of it since it really has to do with back to school items. We do have some shopping planned, or at least window shopping. Kirkland is having a 40% off sale this weekend as well. When Matt and I were looking for his apartment back in December one of the office ladies told us that was where they got all the things they used to decorate their model apartments and that they were super cheap. Steph and Linda expressed interest in joining us in that adventure which looks like might be happening tomorrow. Matt and I both need haircuts but while his is going to get done tomorrow mine will not be until at least Monday. One of our friends, Derek, is having a house warming parties tomorrow night. Boy Saturday will be busy. It will mostly be the Peifer and Rogers labs attending with some of his and Ryan's other friends. Which means time with the Heroscapin' crew. Matt and I have been planning to visit the beach for nearly two summers now and Matt proposed that we just break down and do it this weekend. So it looks like weather permitting we will be taking a stroll down to the beach on Sunday. w00t!! I'm very excited. We also have to go dress shopping since Maureen's wedding is in a week, not so exciting.

On a side note, we joined Nathan, Willow, Steph, and Linda in watching Momma Mia the movie last night. Debbie had taken me to see the musical when I still lived in Vegas and I really loved it. I thought the movie version was pretty hilarious but I have a feeling that it might have been more of a girl thing because Matt didn't really like it. Usually the girly movies we see hold some interest for him too but I think this might have gone too far into girl minds what with the silly singing and dancing and ridiculous love triangles (trapezoids?). He said he just didn't really get it but that he didn't mind going. Yay, Matt is awesome!

It looks like the plague

It looks so gross and it feels even worse.  Pants for me until they go away.  I put a quarter in the picture so you can tell how big some of them are, eww.

The pain, the pain

I'm so very annoyed right now. I forgot to put on bug spray the other day when I went to Steph's. I got bit so many times that I look like I have some horrible infectious disease (I don't). I am now convinced that I'm allergic to mosquito bites. There are fifteen on my right leg and thirteen on the left and they are all weirdly swollen and angry red. They all also itch and hurt at the same time. Its making my asthma flare up and do this weird thing were my throat is trying to close on me. That made eating breakfast this morning a fun experience. I kept gagging on my cereal, which is sad since I only eat soggy cereal. I took some benedryl hoping for some relief, I'm praying it kicks in soon. Maybe I'll get Matt to take some pictures of my legs tonight so I can scare everyone with them.

On a completely unrelated matter, why do some people have to go out of their way to make everyone believe how wonderful they are? Pretension annoys me almost as much as mosquito bites. I just don't understand putting that much effort into being something that you're not. Or even why you would care. If you truly are an amazing person the people that matter to you will already know, you don't have to prove yourself. The people who can't see it aren't worth being friends with anyway. I'm sorry it just makes me sad that I know someone who spends all their time putting up a front when really the person is great anyways. *sigh*

mmmm, tasty

I have a problem with bug bites. I guess I must taste very good to the insect population. I was encouraged to visit the doctor yesterday after a new bite grew to alarming proportions. It was dime sized on Sunday night but when I woke up yesterday it had grown to about the size of a half dollar and it was radiating heat. Fortunately, it was not Lymes Disease as several people had suggested. Not that the doctor knew what it was. To quote him, "That looks really weird". Thanks, Doc. He drew a line around the bite area and then another line so that I could track the grow.  If the bite reaches the second line I'm supposed to run back to Student Health, great system unless you like bathing.  I've included a picture just so nobody thinks I'm being a hypochondriac.

Matt and I have settled on a place. We are going to move to a larger apartment in the same complex he's already at. We picked the two bedroom town home which boasts a good sized 1,116 square feet. We're both already swooning at the idea of arranging the furniture. Of course, I'm doing it because I'm so excited and Matt is swooning because he'd rather flip flies than arrange the furniture. Thats why we have friends. He is much more excited by the prospect of Steph and Linda coming over to help than doing it himself. We'll let everyone know when we move and the new address to send presents to.

We had a smallish BBBQ at Steph and Linda's last night. Poor Matt didn't get to go because he has lab meeting on Wednesday and needed to get things in order. He did show up later to join us at Jess's for a couple of rounds of Rock band. Steph is an awesome singer and Matt says I did a really good job of "Dead on Arrival" by FOB and "Celebrity Skin" by Hole. Here is the band:

Stuff is tiring

Sunday night, I'm kinda tired. Matt and I spent the day looking at apartments yesterday. I think we must have looked at about eight places. A couple of places we crossed off the list right away. Its nice to be able to look Matt in the eyes and know he's thinking the same thing I am. Timberhollow had the weirdest layout with several random spaces that were nearly useless. Camdon Governor's Village was way too expensive and too far from campus. Knowing how my blood sugar gets when I'm running around I packed myself a little snack. I put a couple of ice packs in my Dora the Explorer lunch box along with some Farmer's Cheese from the local dairy, red pepper and basil hummus from Trader Joe's, some garlic pita chips, and sugar cookies. I managed to snag a couple of bottles of ice cold water from the various apartments that we visited. It was good because it was some tiring work being fake friendly with the salespeople and then walking around the many apartments. I felt like when you're with someone with ugly or stupid children. You can't come out and say it so you kind of dance around the subject. "Oooh, you're right. It is unique the way there is a half wall in the middle of the room." In the end though I think we are going to be staying at Shadowood where Matt currently lives. They have very nice layouts for a two bedroom garden and two bedroom townhouse. Not sure which we're going to take just yet, I'm leaning toward the townhouse because it has a huge living room which is where we spend most of our time. Matt wants to check to make sure that all our furniture will make it up the stairs, which, of course is the right thing to do. It is awesome that Matt is so practical. I get caught up in things a lot and I have Matt there to remember the important stuff say for instance if our very large, very heavy, oak furniture can make it up the stairs. We'll let everyone know as soon as possible what our new address is. We still have to talk to the management at Shadowood to find out when our new place will be available.

Maureen's shower was today. I, obviously, did not attend but I was able to talk to many family members. My "bag of bags" was quite a hit. It was passed around and caused Nana to give me a call which I missed. I called her back and after I said, "Hi Nana" she replied with, "Hi, this is Nana." *sigh* Maureen liked the necklace and bag and Elisa wants me to make her one of each. Goodness know I have enough plastic bags. Of course if any of my readers wants to save plastic bags to send me or bring me on a visit or I could pick up on a visit that would be super awesome.

The necklace I made for Maureen (crocheted wire)

Dan (Matt's brother) and Caroline (Dan's girlfriend) came over for a family dinner, yay. I made rice, beans and steak picado (Pikachu). The rice was a bit bland but as far as I know everything else tasted superb. We served a white and a red wine. I'd tell you what but the bottles are too far away to read and I don't feel like getting up. The four of us had a nice chat, sadly they had to leave to continue unpacking since they have recently moved into a new apartment as well.

sorry for the long post

Hello weekend

Yay Friday! Its been a bumpy week. Matt and I are planning at looking at some apartments this weekend. No decisions just doing some window shopping so we can sit down and figure out what is out there and what we're willing to pay. I am really looking forward to having a kitchen that can fit more than just me and a mouse at the same time. I love to cook but my kitchen makes me want to order pizza instead. It should be interesting trying to fit all of our things together... ok I might have slightly more stuff than Matt does. I'm very excited about it. At some point I'm going to have to go look for a dress for Maureen's wedding. Bleh, I don't feel like trying on clothes

I've lost track of time

Its been a while since my last post, sorry. The CA parents were in town for a nice visit. We didn't get a whole lot done, which was nice. Slept in a lot, went to the farmer's market, ate a ton, typical family stuff. Matt and I also introduced them to pictionary, which neither had ever played. Those who know Tom will understand that the game frustrated him quite a bit since him and my mom had a hard time conveying messages in picture format. I saved a few of the drawings that were produced, we'll see if you can guess what the word was.
While they were here I also managed to pick up some food poisoning. So I've been out of commission for the past couple of days. Not sure what caused it but my poor tummy will be happy when we're back to normal. Of course I did not mind the staying home and sleeping all day. The horrible wounded feeling in my intestines I could have done without. Tom injured himself while he was here as well. Something about his rotator cuff being out of place. Mom was little hazy on the details but it didn't sound very pleasant.

I post more tomorrow or tonight when I get near Matt's camera.

Sleeping in rocks

It is the second full day that my mom and Tom are here. I worked yesterday which was good since they uncharacteristically slept until 1pm. Crazy! We did Momma Dip's for dinner last night. mmmmmm, good. I convinced Mom to try something different this time since last time she got some sort of beef thingy that she really didn't like. It wasn't really surprising thought since she doesn't like a lot of beef or pork. This time everybody, minus me, ordered fried chicken. It looked very tasty and everyone seemed to like it. We also had an appetizer of fried pickle spears and fried green tomatoes. *sigh* The cobbler of the night was blueberry and in case anyone was wondering it was scrumptious. After all that good eatin' we decided we needed a walk around the block which helped quite a bit.
We spent the rest of the evening playing guitar hero. Tom has never played before so he was pretty excited about trying it. He was pretty good for a first-timer. Then Matt blew everyone's mind by playing Dragonforce. Poor Matt had to leave to get to bed on time. I stayed up for a long time chatting with Mom and Tom and showing Tom how to box and make a mii. I got to hear all about some of my mom's friends growing up including everybody's favorite chola, Birdie. Tom is going to help me make my plastic yarn so I can make more bag of bags and get rid of the monster pile of plastic bags that is taking up the spare 'oom.
I think we're going to do wine tasting tonight and the farmer's market tomorrow. We'll see I'm just glad that they're getting a chance to rest for once. And by rest I mean Mom slept in and is now cleaning my kitchen.

Just call me Rosa

I'm very excited to have family visitors coming this week. YAY!! Mom and Tom are coming to visit for a couple of days *counting* four of them actually, and five nights. Well, sort of. Their plane is arriving at 1am on Thursday morning. I haven't had family come to visit in way too long. I get homesick. Luckily Matt's parents came to visit recently which helped with the homesickness. I do need to get on the cleaning. Not that my place is dirty but its not Mom clean. So I'll be bustling around tonight and tomorrow night like a little maid making sure everything is wiped down. Hopefully it'll leave me with enough time to take a small nap since I rarely see 1am.
I haven't set up an entire itinerary yet but here are a few things that I'm thinking about:

1. Wine tasting with the Peifer Lab and adjunct members
2. Mama Dips (jealous? you wouldn't be if you came to visit more often, sir)
3. Bar-B-Que Joint, I of course can't eat the meat part but they have a surprising selection of veggie options, plus Chris said it was amazing
4. Swap meet or thrift stores
5. dinner cooked by mom (hehe)

On a side note, I am completely covered in bites. I think that both Matt and I have some sort of biting insect at our respective apartments. His leaves very large bites mine are tiny but there are more of them. Poor Matt has three in a row on his finger. I'm itchy. Now back to work.

Battle for all time

Last night Matt and I had the crew over for a friendly game of Heroscape. The Heroscape crew consists of Jess, Jacob, Steph, Linda, Doug, Nathan and of course Matt and I. Everyone was very punctual and showed up at the same time of eight o'clock. Too bad for me since I hadn't finished cooking yet. And because I am my mother's daughter I cannot help but always make way too much food, last night was no exception. I was going for snack foods and the menu consisted of:

1. garlic bread
2. stuffed mushrooms
3. poppers
4. guacamole
5. ranch dip
6. cupcakes
7. chocolate chip cookies
8. mini cheesecakes
9. drinks galore

Everything except for the poppers were homemade. So yes, I might have overdone it since there were a total of eight of us. *sigh* At least everything was very tasty. Jess and Jacob also brought "us" a very lovely cheese that nearly made me swoon. Steph and Linda made an amazing bruschetta made from tomatoes and basil from their garden. Both dishes I am eating as a lunchtime snack. The game, as always, was not a quick affair. Our best soldier, Krug, was knocked out early by a determined Jess. For a while it was two separate wars; Matt and I vs. the Sawyers, and Steph and Linda vs Doug and Nathan. Finally the two wars converged and we managed to wipe out the last of Doug and Nathan's army before falling to Linda's dice rolling prowess. She and Steph were the ultimate champions and they took home our traveling trophy, the Human Champion, with the stipulation that they must add something to him before our next battle. The Human Champion is this ridiculous trophy that Matt ended up with after Adam's white elephant party back in December. It was a soccer trophy that looks like a silver person in a soccer uniform kicking a soccer ball except that it also has a soccer ball for a bobble head. Its actually a little creepy. Why would he be kicking something that looked like his head? Well, we took the label that said "coach" and replaced it with lab tape that reads "Human Champion", much better in my opinion. We also kept ourselves amused when it wasn't our turn playing videos on You Tube. It was kicked off by "I kissed a girl" by Kate Perry, which, if you haven't seen or heard yet you should at least check it out. The song is completely ridiculous but horribly catchy and NPR tells me that it is the number one song in the country, yeah, NPR. I seriously think that NPR is using youth radio to bring up things that they couldn't normally talk about. But thats different rant altogether. Our play list was mostly dominated by video game and anime songs, because we're that cool. Nothing better that hanging out with friends, playing a game that involved a twenty-sided die and listening to video game songs.

Our board about halfway through the game.

Nathan and Steph do battle

Matt

The Sawyers give a high five after Jess takes someone out

Krug drowns his sorrows in a bottle of Yueng Ling

Official Carolina Girl

I spent most of the day yesterday running all around becoming official. I went down and got my own car insurance. Then I drove to Hillsborough to go to the dmv with a quick stop at Taco Bell. Yummy, yummy Taco Bell. Then I went and got my North Carolina driver's license. I actually took quite a good picture. I may or may not have spent a bit of time grocery shopping at the Walmart Supercenter in Hillsborough. I also managed to get to the Licensing office to register Milo and get him North Carolina plates. He looks so cute, plus, Matt pointed out that Milo is now blue with red lettered plates and Audrey is red with blue lettered plates. Too cute.

Tonight Matt and I are hosting a Heroscape night at his place. I've already made too much food but I'll take some pictures so everyone can see them.

--science update--
I ran my western today and from my preliminary results everything looks great!

Best Western

I've been screwing up the same experiment for nearly two weeks now. I tried everything I could think of to fix it. "It" is a western (an experiment to look for presence/ absence of protein and a rough estimate of levels of protein). You have to make a gel that you put your protein into and then run electricity through the gel causing the protein to move down the gel. Depending on the size of your particular protein, it "run"down the gel at different speeds. Bigger= slower, smaller=faster. Anyways, my problem is that mine keeps running funny. It makes a frowny face and the first lane that has several colors in it scrunches up on the top and then spreads too far out about half way down. I had a new idea on how to fix it so I'm going to try again in about ten minutes. I'll let you know how it goes.

--update--
Catarina just ran a gel independent of all of my reagents and the same thing happened to her. I might hate science today.

--update the second--
It looked fine which makes me annoyed. I guess I can go ahead and do the real experiment. Hopefully my luck will last that long.

Lovely weekend

Our super exciting Fourth went as follows: We slept in, went to work, went to Michaels/Target, played Maple Story, and then met Steph and Linda at He's Not for a holiday blue cup. I had a blast talking with her family and then Steph's brother Chris correctly predicted a rainstorm. So we went into the newly painted downstairs and I helped my team win two games of darts. The party started breaking up from there and Nathan, Matt and I ended up discussing the pros and cons of life, grad school, and MMORPGs. No matter what Nathan says, we are not joining WoW.
It turns out that the lovely storm took out some nearby power lines and along with them my power for nearly 24hours. So we spent a lot of yesterday bumming around enjoying Matt's air conditioning. We drove by later on and since we didn't have a camera here is an artist's rendering of what the power lines look/ed like:

Before:
After:Thats pretty much it for our weekend escapades. I think I'm going to take a day off this week to handle car stuff. Oh yeah, I've been approved by UNC as a official NC resident. I don't know who was happier, Mark or me. Probably him since I just saved him $20,000

No plans for the Fourth

Last year we had a lovely Fourth of July. Trent hosted a BBBQ at the cottage and then the whole group went down to Kenan for a surprisingly good fireworks show. It wasn't Disney caliber but it was still very good. This year both Matt and I have to work. Stupid adorable flies. Hopefully we won't be in for too long, maybe only a half day? Steph's brother, sister, and soon to be brother-in-law are in town as of 2am this morning and we were going to do wine tasting at Southern Season tomorrow night. They're still having their awesome storewide sale right now so it'll give me a chance to make sure I buy everything I really "need".

Matt and I watched this adorable movie last night called Quinceañera. Its about a girl who finds out she's pregnant just before her fifteenth birthday. I love that she had ninos for the dress, dj, cake.

first post

oooh, first post. I don't know how often I'll be posting here but since I don't get to talk to most people (except for Matt and Steph) on a daily basis maybe this will help me keep in touch. I'm really bad at calling people and writing people but maybe I'll get a couple of minutes a day to let y'all know what I'm up to. I've actually been thinking about doing this for a long time but never got around to it. Not to mention that grad school is a very busy confusing time. Well, anyways, I'll try and keep up.