random thoughts

What's cooking Uncle Sam?

2011-12-07T08:30:00.001-05:00

Matt and I made an effort to finish all of our errands this weekend so that we'd have Sunday free to have fun. Mission accomplished. We really haven't gone out yet since moving to our new place and we decided to go touristing. I listen to a lot of NPR as I go about my household duties and I recently heard about an exhibit at the National Archives that sounded right up my alley. It's called "What's Cooking Uncle Sam?" The exhibit is all about how the government has influenced the way America eats.

After church and some lunch Matt and I drove on down to the metro station. Being the well seasoned metro rider, Matt helped me buy a smart pass card. He is so cool he doesn't even take his out of his wallet, he just taps his wallet on the space and he walks through. We both read for most of the trip and I only got a little bit of motion sickness.

The exhibit was really cool and with a lot of interesting facts that neither of us knew. Did you know that back in the 30's butter was its own food group? Mmmm, butter. We also had no idea that it wasn't until 1965 that manufacturers had to start putting the ingredients on the food labels. Crazy. Another thing that didn't occur to either of us until we were in the building- the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are all housed at the National Archives. There were very few people there so we had a chance to look at then for quite a while. So, one museum down, a lot more to go :)

Post Thanksgiving quiet

2011-11-30T12:56:00.001-05:00

Sadly, Thanksgiving is over. My favorite holiday of the year, gone again. We had a wonderful day though, so that's good. Little Keiko came over to spend the day with us. We haven't seen her in such a long time and it was nice to catch up. She even helped us cook our dinner since I'm not really awesome at cooking meat. Or at least trouble-shooting it. It's entirely possible that I made too much food for two people. We had Matt's 10lb turkey breast, a large pyrex of mashed potatoes, another of sweet potatoes, and a large pyrex casserole of stuffing. I also may have made pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, mini apple pies, and salted caramel. Oops. Everything was fantastic and we paired it with a nice wine that we'd been holding onto for a special occasion. We had thought that we might make it to a showing of The Muppets. Haha, that didn't happen. It was hard enough to get off the couch to go to bed.

My lovely new in-laws were sweet enough to come visit for the rest of the weekend and bring us a bunch of things we had left in Michigan. They even took us to Ikea to get a new dresser. Suzanne and I rearranged the kitchen while the men put together the dresser. On Saturday the four of us went to the Home Depot and picked out our Christmas tree. It's so pretty. After setting the tree up we went and has lunch with some of the Snee cousins. They were a riot and helpful to boot. It turns out that they attend one of the churches that Matt and I were seriously considering. We also managed to get them to divulge the names of their favorite area restaurants. I'm so excited to go check them out. Dan and Caroline and the pups stopped by on their way back to North Carolina, which was awesome. I love having family come visit. Zelda got to meet her new cousin and they got along quite well until he wanted to play. Then Zelda got all huffy. It was a very tiring but fun weekend. We're getting back on schedule an beginning to count down the days until Christmas. Our first married Christmas. Teehee

Getting messy

2011-11-21T14:31:00.001-05:00

I am not sure why, but things always seem to get horribly messy when I organize them. Sure, eventually they get straightened out, but the halfway point always makes me want to run and hide. Matt and I used some of our gift cards this weekend to buy plastic drawers for the closet of spare'oom. Now I'm going about and organizing my craft things. Hopefully I can get it all put away in a way that makes sense and is usable. Plus, once they're all hidden in the closet we can make it look man cave-y.

We have been shopping around the area for a new church. There weren't a whole lot of choices back in NC but there are quite a few within a short distance of our new place. We've been to three so far. I think we're going to go back to the first and third a couple of more times before we settle down and pick one. The second was kind of scary. Not scary scary, but it was really dour and nobody seemed happy to be there. We're definitely not going back there.

I'm back (and married!)

2011-11-16T07:56:00.001-05:00

It's been so very long since either of us posted. I do not understand how some brides start blogs while planning their weddings. This is a short post, and it's unlikely that any will see it. I thought it might be good to get back in the habit of posting.

I am diligently working on getting our new little home in order and usable. It's a little slow going but I'm chopping away at it. We need to get some new furniture, shelves mostly, and some lamps. I think our new dining room may fit our table at full size. I have to get some more things organized before we test my theory though. Matt and I have been like real adults and have been eating all our meals at our table instead of on the couch with tv trays. Pretty fancy. My goal for today is finish unpacking spare 'oom. Not necessarily having it completely organized, but at least all the boxes should be gone.

I have to start planning Thanksgiving dinner too. It's only going to be Matt and I for dinner but I'm still going to make some very tasty, tasty food. Plus lil sis Keiko is going to come visit on Thanksgiving day to hang out and chat for a while. I promised to make her a cheesecake. I think I'll go with a pumpkin cheesecake with graham cracker crust. I just have to find a good recipe. I also need a good stuffing recipe. Once I make out the menu I can write up a shopping list and look around and figure what stores we'll get things at.

The boxes are calling me, I must start actual work.

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Wiener Dog Fest 2010

2010-11-02T15:54:00.001-04:00

Today was the annual Wiener Dog Fest at Weaver St. Getting that many dachshunds together at one time is always a site to see. Zelda met up with her good friends Baxter, Kreuza, and Zero. I think her visit's with the Steins' Montana and Wally are really paying off. Not only does Zelda have a puppy crush on Wally but she's been learning to play like a dog with him. Today went really well with our little girl. There was lots of sniffing, being sniffed, and absolutely no hiding from the other dogs. Zelda normally receives a lot of attention just because she's a dachshund. I'm not just saying this because I'm her mom but, even amongst a sea of doxies people are drawn to her. Today we can probably chalk it up to the fact that she was wearing an adorable costume. We lost the musical sit contest in the last round but we'll get them next year. On the plus side, we did win one of the raffle prizes that includes a new brown leather travel carrier.

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Location:Weaver St, Carrboro

Church is fun!

2010-08-08T12:44:00.001-04:00

I'm blogging whilst Matt shops. It's a good system, when I "help" do the shopping we end up being here for two hours versus the forty-five minutes that it takes Matt alone. Anyways, a couple of things happened this morning during church that tickled me and I thought I'd share. Our church is chock full of kids, a lot of them are gingers, but that's another story. There are benches along the perimeter of the church which are often taken by parents with small children who can make a quick exit if they start to cry. Today there was a young family sitting near our pew on one of the benches. Matt and I are pretty sure that the parents had a conversation this mooring that went something like this:
"Did you see what she's wearing?"
"Yes but I'm tired, her brothers are fussy and it'll keep her quiet so I'm not going to fight her about it."
That little girl is definitely a kindred spirit. She was wearing a brown dress with blue polka dots and a tiara. Yes, a tiara. I wanted to hug her. Even better, every time the congregation sang, she twirled. It was so fantastic. Sadly, Matt says that I'm not allowed to wear my tiara.

The other thing that happened was that Matt and I got the giggles. This is not the first time this has happened to me in church and somehow I doubt it will be the last. I really blame Matt though, he started it. He always jokes with me that I should sing the Spanish lyrics whenever they have them. Today I did. I wasn't trying to be funny but the combo of my singing and the odd lyrics of the song struck Matt's funny bone and once he started I caught it. Don't worry, we didn't disturb anyone, we weren't making any noise and we got it under control by the end of the song so we didn't miss any of the mass.

Location:Target

A winner is me

2010-08-03T10:24:00.001-04:00

The Chapel Hill Public Library has an adult summer reading program going on. Matt pointed it out to me on one of our frequent trips to enrich our minds. I have fond memories of doing them as a kid so I made sure we wasted no time in signing up. I've been on a bit if a reading kick lately so it seemed like a good idea. It works like this: you read a book, write a little review on one of their forms and turn it in, every Friday they pull a couple of the forms and the people who wrote them win a gift. The third week I won! Yay! It wasn't very expensive-- a notepad and some magnetic poetry, but that's not really the point. I won!

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More food

2010-06-30T08:26:00.001-04:00

I have continued my cooking quest from earlier by blowing through several food blogs in search of great recipes. I'm really it itching to try them out. I made a so-so spinach and cheese strata on last Tuesday that left me a little sad. It had sounded so delicious, instead it was kind of bland. You know when Matt says it's bland, it must be pretty bad *wink*. I think if I were to make it again I would cut the recipe in half, add a lot of basil and something more substantial like mushrooms and onions. Spinach just didn't really give off any flavor. I also made some really tasty chocolate chip cookies. I wasn't big on the texture, these were a little too flat and crispy for me, but the flavor was wonderful. The recipe called for a lot more vanilla than I'm used to seeing in a chocolate chip cookie recipe and I used dark chocolate chips instead of regular ones. I continued my new adventures in food with candied grapefruit peel. Surprisingly Matt really like them. I had to cut the peel very thin to get as much of the pith off as possible since that's where a lot of the bitterness comes from. I can tell I've gotten Matt caught up in the cooking too. After he finished cleaning the kitchen he started trying to figure out if we could do the same with orange peels(we can). He now also really wants me to do some lemon peels.
That stuff was all last week (week before?) and vie done some more cooking since then. My friend Sarah gave me a recipe for a panzanella caprese salad. Can I just say that caprese salad is one of my most favorite things as it is but adding toasted bread to it just makes it divine. I made it for Matt's coworker's going away party and it was a big hit. I also made the most disappointing cheesecake of my life. Before this I thought that I had a really amazing recipe, and I do but that is only half the story. When I cook my cheesecake I usually put the pan in a roasting pan of water. I learned the trick from Alton Brown which makes up for the worst cookie recipe I've ever used that is also his. It helps the cheesecake cook more evenly and allows it too heat up/cool off much more slowly. I've never made one without doing that and I decided that I was going to forgo it this time. Big mistake. The darn thing was burn-y around the edges, fell in the middle, and the texture was off. It still tasted fine but, it was not the divine thing I'm used to. Ah well, you live you learn. It also brings me to my next subject.
The reason that I didn't want to do the roasting pan of water is that it would be a huge pain to try and lift it would have been an awful idea. I fell about two weeks ago while stepping over the the doggy door at the top of the stairs. Not graceful but then I rarely am. We were pretty sure that I sprained my wrist but it wasn't really feeling better so Matt made me tell the doctor about it. She made me get an x-ray which didn't show any break. However, she tells me that it's quite possible that my wrist is broken because the bone that she was trying to look at is hard to see breaks in. So I'm too keep wrist wrapped and if it still hurts in two-ish weeks it still hurts I have to go to a bone doctor. At this point the pain keeps getting worse so Matt and I are pretty sure it's broken. So, as my dear friend Linda said, perhaps I should not try making bread by hand until we know for sure.

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2010-06-15T08:08:00.002-04:00

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. ~Luciano Pavarotti

I've been on a cooking kick lately. I am currently scouring the internet and all my recipe books in search of tasty yet cheaply made meals. Sadly, so many of the ones I have found are either amazing and expensive or blah and cheap. Thankfully that isn't true about all of them. There are so many food blogs out there these days and some of them are quite good but the very best of the bunch is smitten kitchen. Oh how I love it. I've read it for a while but I decided just the other day that I was going to start putting her ideas to work. What got me was this recipe she had for tomato pie. Which is, apparently, a southern dish. I'd never even heard of it before but I am so glad that I have. She absolutely raved about it and her enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I decided to jump off my week of exciting new cooking with it. Really, at $3 for the tomatoes and $1 for corn, it seemed like a win/win situation. I don't even know if I can tell you how amazing it was. Really. That good. It all sounds so simple a little tomato, a little corn, a little cheese, all in a biscuit crust. But as with so many good recipes, it is way more than the sum of its parts. Next time I make it I'm going to put more basil and a little more mayo with a lot more lemon juice but other than that, fabulous. I'm so happy that I only had to share it with Matt because it means that I have leftovers for lunch today. I think lunch is going to come early today. I didn't take any pictures because her pictures where so much prettier, mine looked the same only messier. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. mmm, tomato pie

The Best Easter Ever, part II

2010-05-05T21:42:00.003-04:00

Kelly already did a great job of describing the proposal – but for anyone interested in what it looked like from my perspective, that’s what this post is about. It’s like Rashomon!

I’ve been told by several people – Kelly included – that they were surprised by how calm I seemed during the night before/morning of the proposal. I didn’t think too much of that, at first, but it is a little bit odd – I can easily be made nervous by things much less momentous than a marriage proposal. My outward calm was partially by design - I had made sure that I was the only one who knew the exact date of the proposal, and I didn’t want to arouse any suspicions that might ruin the surprise. However, I think the main reasons were that doing the proposal – and doing it right – was something I really wanted to do, and that I had a plan.

That first bit – wanting to do it – mainly meant that the feeling I had immediately beforehand was more akin to excitement than nerves. I can’t think of what to best compare it to…boarding a roller coaster that you’ve been looking forward to comes to mind, but seems off the mark. Thinking of that second bit – that I had a plan – might make things a little more clear. There have been a couple times that I’ve really tried to sweep Kelly off her feet with a surprise, and when it works, it’s the best feeling in the world. Some of those surprises ended up on strips of paper inside the eggs I had hidden – the memories from the relationship that Kelly alluded to in the previous post. Anyway, the point is that such surprises take a lot of planning, sometimes starting months in advance. When the time comes, though, there’s usually a point where I just need to do something relatively small to set things in motion – drive her to the theater for a surprise performance of her favorite musical, for example – and then, if planned correctly, the plan takes care of itself.

That’s essentially how the proposal felt. When we got home from church, I had Kelly take a brief nap so I could hide all the eggs, and put the ring in the final egg (I had the ring in my possession for less than 24 hours at that point – getting it was down to the wire, but that’s another story). It was during that time that I had that excited feeling – sort of like the feeling of excitement before any of the big surprises I would plan for her, but of a greater magnitude. Once she started getting emotional on the very first egg, though, the anticipatory excitement changed to “this is going to work…it’s working!” By that point, things had been set in motion, so I could relax (somewhat) and enjoy her enjoying what she still thought was just an egg hunt.

After she found the final egg, it was time for the actual proposal part of the proposal. I had only recently decided exactly what to say, and given the emotionality of the moment, it was a little hard to remember the exact words. I got the message across, though :), and it was pretty easy to remember the last bit: “Kelly Alexandre, will you marry me?”

…And she said yes!

The Best Easter Ever!

2010-04-19T09:55:00.001-04:00

I think I'm finally ok that I won't start blubbering just typing this, maybe.
This Easter Sunday started out like any other. Matt and I got up and ate breakfast then got ready for church. Before we left the Easter Bunny brought Matt his Easter basket with some candy, magic cards, and a new shirt. All of which were awesome. Matt had said that the Easter Bunny wouldn't be dropping off my basket until after Mass so I didn't really give it a second thought. Father John really out did himself with the homily, managing to make me cry at one point. We even had a good parking spo and it only took a couple of minutes to get out of the parking lot. Which is to say, our day was going pretty darn well. We got home and Zelda and I took a teensy nap whilst Matt consulted with the Easter Bunny. He came back to the bedroom to tell me that the Bunny had left me a basket.

I should pause at this point and explain my feelings about Easter. Really, it's more about Easter baskets. As a child I had a small addiction to candy, very small, practically not even there. You can imagine though that a holiday where I was presented with a large amount of candy would be high on my list. These days I'm not really huge on candy but the excitement about Easter baskets is still there.

So, back to the story. Matt handed me my basket which was filled with grass and a single piece of paper, no candy. The paper that was sitting there was the first clue for an Easter egg hunt. How exciting was that?! Each subsequent clue lead me to another egg, a clue and a memory from our relationship. I started crying after the first one. Now, you may be thinking that I should have realized what was going on at that point but I honestly thought that Matt was just doing an amazing job this year. The seventh egg (in the freezer) pointed me to Matt for the last egg which I thought he was about to pull out a large amount of candy and maybe a couple of trinkets. He said we had to go to the living room for it. This is where things get a little fuzzy. I think he said he had to ask me something before I got my Easter present and I think he said something about being in love with me and wanting to spend his life with me. The part that I do remember is the sudden realization of what was happening as he got down on one knee and pulled a shiny blue egg from his pocket. Inside was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. I would have said yes no matter what, but that certainly didn't hurt. I cried, we kissed, I cried, we hugged Zelda, I cried, I stared at my ring, I cried, I hugged Matt, I cried. It took a good forty-five minutes before I was able to calm down enough to call anyone. Of course we went outside first to take some pictures of the ring because we knew people would ask. It was a very emotional afternoon, to say the least. Poor little Zelda was very upset and confused why I was crying and hugging her and Matt every few mintues. We finished our phone calls and we met Dan and Caroline for dinner. It was a lovely way to celebrate. The waiter even brought us a small bottle of champagne to toast with. I think it might have been the best Easter I've ever had.

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So graceful

2010-03-29T10:26:00.001-04:00

I used to dance, not, you know, professionally or anything. I was on the drill team in high school, I took tap and ballet as a child, and other stuff. Matt and I also do ballroom dancing around the house for fun. I only mention it because I want you all to know that I can be graceful and move well. I think that only happens when I dance though. I am notorius for walking into things, banging my knees into desks, smacking my hand into door knobs, and I trip sometimes. Actually, I usually only trip on the stairs. I did it over Christmas, when Chris and Moe were here and broke two of my little toes. Don't worry, I've done that several times and I know how to deal with it. On Friday though, I tumbled down the stairs and landed on the barricade that we have set up to keep Zelda from bounding up the stairs. Considering the distance and velocity of which I fell, I didn't get hurt too badly. It knocked the wind out of me. The worst part is the ginormous bruise I now have. Its about the size of my hand. Not pleasant, especially since Zelda knows exactly where to jump to land on it.

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It's been a while

2010-03-28T23:03:00.001-04:00

I was having trouble updating the blog from my phone. The Internets weren't letting me update properly. As it turns out, there's an app for that. Which I now have. Some of the reviews are a little spotty so we'll see how it goes. If it works well, I'll be able to update from anywhere. Maybe that will increase the number of blog posts, maybe.

We have just about completed the 2010 Kell-stravaganza! It's been a busy one this year. My mom came to visit for a week. It was nice because I got her to rest for once. She actually just slept the first day and one day I got up from my nap to find her watching an NCIS marathon. That kinda blew my mind, she usually can't sit down to watch tv because she always needs to be doing something. Which is probably where I get that from. On the plus side, I get a lot more crafting done because of it. Of course, she also might have slept the first day because her flight was two hours late and we didnt get back to the fort until three something in the morning. In any case she has spending so much of her time these past few years taking care of Nana and Jerry its good to see her resting. We ate a lot, mom made me some chile, did some shoppin', and enjoyed each other's company. It was a good time, even if she did have to get to the airport by 4:30am to leave. I'm just teasing. I was just happy to have had her come visit.

The day after my mom left, my dad and Deb stopped by for a visit. Sadly, they only had a few days with us. Deb had a thing up in D.C. and Dad joined to see the sights, so afterward they drove down to good ol' Chapel Hill to see the three of us. We spent a lot of our time hanging out, watching the History Channel. But we did some shopping (Matt and I now have two blankets that actually fit across the bed), and of course there was a lot of eating to get done. We had my official birthday dinner on Friday at The Melting Pot. I think all birthday dinners should contain copious amounts of cheese. Mmmmmm, cheese. I don't need to mention that it was scrumptious but I will. It was scrumptious. Whoever decided that large pots of melted cheese made a great meal is a hero. I would like to shake their cheesey hand. Or eat more cheese, whatever. I think we made good use of our time together. It was kinda like the old days, sitting and watching tv together. Learning about history and whatnot. We may be seeing all of the parents in July, but nothing has been officially planned yet.

I should mention, this was the first time any of them had met our little Zelda girl. I think she pretended to behave herself fairly well for a short time. She had my mom tricked for a few days because Mom thought we were being harsh with her. Then after a while Mom also realized that when Zelda starts running for cover it means she's being bad. She too began to yell, "Zelda, what did you get?!" Ahh but Zelda's cuteness always wins the day. There are also some really adorable pictures of her bonding with my dad, who she took to immediately. Every couple of minutes she'd get all excited again and try to crawl into his beard. Debbie was not left out of the puppy-luvin'. Zelda took her into the pack and attempted to clean Debbie's face and ears.

Now it is just Matt, Zelda, and I and the house seems awfully quiet. Matt assures me I won't notice it much after a few days but for now it makes me feel a little sad and homesick. I think I'll have more cheese now.

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Bridge ices before road

2010-02-10T10:31:00.000-05:00

I would like to begin with a quick statement in my defense. Having grown up in SoCal and Vegas, roads icing over was not a major concern. Its not really something I think about on a day to day basis. So a couple of weeks ago when we were trying to decide if we were going to try making it to D&D Matt gave me quite the revelation. I had always thought the sign "bridge ices before road" meant something like the bridge ices in the area right before the road. What it should really say is "bridge ices before the road does". I guess that would be a little long for a road sign but it would make so much more sense. Sure, now that he explained it to me it's clear. Obviously due to the smaller volume the bridge would freeze first. Now when I see the sign I insert the extra words. I don't ever drive when the road would be freezing but its good to have that cleared up just in case.

We are making our first joint trip to Michigan this weekend. I'm super excited about it. I get to see Matt's friends and family, where he grew up, and eat at a bunch of restaurants he's told me about a million times. I also have a super cute dress and a cute shoe to wear at the wedding. It should be a great time. The only thing I don't like about the whole trip is that we have to leave our poor little Zelda behind. Her Aunts Steph and Linda have plans for this Valentine's weekend so we are leaving her at the vet's office. :( Not that I think they won't treat her well. The women there absolutely adore our little Zelda girl. Last time we left her they had here up front hanging out with them the whole time. I guess another bonus from Zelda's point of view is that they also have a couple of cats that live there that just roam around. She gets so excited that she nearly wags herself apart anytime she gets within ten feet of a cat. Its hilarious. Every time we go to Petsmart she tries to convince us to adopt a kitteh for her. There, I feel a little bit better about leaving her behind.

Zelda's Snow Day

2010-01-30T10:17:00.000-05:00

SNOW!!!! It snowed last night and this morning and is currently sleeting. Thats what Matt tells me at least. Not having had much experience with such things I'll have to take his word that that is what is falling from the sky. It actually snowed quite a bit, at least to my eyes. Enough that after consulting with the Sawyers we decided that it was probably a bad idea to drive to Apex today to play D&D. Which means we won't be able to take out the death cultists until next Saturday. *sigh* We were all really looking forward to trying out our new level four characters. Its probably for the best though. The weather channel is saying that it is supposed to turn into a heavier sleet and/or freezing rain as the afternoon progresses. So while it might be ok to drive over there it probably won't be so safe to drive back. Which means all the moms can breathe easier. We will be staying in today and having a snow day.

Since the last time it snowed we didn't take Zelda outside today was her very first romp in the snow. I am not so sure that she liked it very much. Somehow I don't think she's a snow dog. She did eat quite a bit of the snow. When she went off the sidewalk the snow reached past her belly. It was pretty cute. We only took her out for maybe three minutes tops so we didn't cover her up. As soon as we came back inside she ran some laps and is currently napping on my lap. I don't think the experience was too traumatic for her. Here are some pictures to document her time in the snow.

Are you guys related? No...YES!!!! part 2

2010-01-24T12:50:00.003-05:00

Oh how I love food. Another place that Chris fell in love with on his last visit was the Barbeque Joint. It is a crazy kind of little place. From what I understand it has the best Carolina BBQ around. Even better than the famed Allen Bros. Knowing this, one would expect that they would have little to offer a veggie like me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Along with their amazing traditional southern foods and BBQ they have a gourmet selection of vegetarian dishes. Weird, right? I usually get their eggplant but they were closing for renevations for a couple of weeks so they were running down the kitchen. I had to make due with their homemade rosemary mac and cheese. It was fantastic. Another night, another set of wonderfully, over full bellies.

Matt and I had decided long before they arrived that we wanted to take them to one of our favorite local eateries, Buns. I'm pretty sure I've posted about Buns before. They use all local ingrediants, bake their buns fresh daily, and have really delicious dipping sauces for their fries. I'm a creature of habit and I always end up getting the veggie burger with goat's cheese and a balsamic reduction. Pretty fancy for a burger joint, huh? I think Matt tried the chicken breast this time which we've heard was really good. It didn't disappoint. Do I need to addthat we went home with happily full tummies? I think its a theme for their visit.

I don't want you all thinking that we only ate out during their visit. Michelle and I are very good cooks and we managed to turn out a couple of good meals. We had a large Christmas Eve dinner, consisting of turkey breast, mashed potatoes, candied yams, gravy, and stuffing. It turned out pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself. Michelle offer to make one of her's and Chris's favorite dinners, tomato and red pepper soup with grilled chesse sandwiches and a carrot salad. I helped by making a rosemary olive oil bread for the sandwiches. The salad was really good. So good that even Matt liked it despite the fact that it was made with ranch dressing and baby carrots. Moe is definitly an excellent cook. For Christmas day Moe and I prepared a buffet for everyone to graze on throughout the day, a tradition stared by my mom, Debbie. There were several kinds of dip and cream cheese spreads, two sweet cream cheese spreads, some cold cuts, a veggie platter, and of course, a cheese array consisting of no less than six kinds of cheese. It was a good day. And in case any of the moms are still unsure, our rag tag group still made it to midnight mass, full tummies or no.

We were sad to see them go. I love having my family around, even my crazy brother ;) teehee. We had a ton of fun while they were here. Even though Chris tried to pretend that he didn't like going shopping with Moe and I. Matt and Chris played a couple of games of Heroscape which Chris, or really the Hulk, won. We watched a couple of movies and took a lot of naps. It was a lovely weekand I wished that it could have been longer.

Are you guys related? No...YES!

2010-01-15T18:55:00.024-05:00

It has been brought to our attenion by several parties that Matt and I have been somewhat lax in our blogging. So let me regale you with tales of our Christmas.

In an attempt to save money and because it's getting harder and harder for Matt to take time off of work we did not travel this Christmas. Fear not! My brother and Moe came to stay with us for a week. Although I suspect that their real reason for visiting was to meet our little Zelda-girl. She was very happy to meet her ninos. In fact, she played nearly nonstop with Chris the entire time he was here. Needless to say she slept very well while they were here. They very nearly didn't get here. Their plane was late leaving California and they came close to missing their connecting flight.

I could regale you all with heartwarming stories of our family moments lovingly shared in front of the fire. However we all know the most important part of any trip my family is involved in is the food. Chris, having visited once before, had a small but unchangable list of places he wanted to dine at while he was here. On the very top of the list was Mama Dip's. If you've never been there, on your next (or first) trip to NC, you should make it a priority. Both sets of my parnts love it. Matt and I love it too but, as Steph says, it's the kinda place you should only have once or twice a year. So waitig until people come to visit is pefect. Every single thing I've had there has been delicious and all the meat eaters hav also been in love with their dishes as well. The main reason we really wanted to go was the fried pickles. I am a firm believer that frying foods can only make them taste better. Things that are already tasty come out heavenly. The fried pickle is one of those heavenly items. The pickles at Mama Dip's are fried to a golden brown perfection, they come out warm and have a bit of a spicy bite to them. We got two orders and at first Chris was worried that we wouldn't be able to finish them. They all disappeared, within a matter of moments. The rest of the night we all just kind of laid around the living room. We were too full and extremely happy about it. To be cont.

We're moving

2010-01-15T18:54:00.000-05:00

To the Biltmore Estate. I think with that many rooms they won't even notice us there. Well, maybe they'll notice Zelda, but I can be real quiet when I need to. Matt gave me my Christmas present early this year and took me to see the Biltmore Estate all done up for Christmas. It was a lovely little trip. We had lunch at Sheetz and then we got to Asheville a little too early to check into our hotel so we browsed a local pet store. They had this nylabone rib toy that I was thinking of getting Zelda. I didn't end up getting it but I still want to, I'm pretty sure she would have loved it. We stayed at the cutest little hotel and the lady who checked us in was nice as could be. We didn't have time to stay and admire our spacious room though, our reservations for the Biltmore were at 5:30pm. A couple of years ago Chris and I were watching a program on the Travel Channel about "The most" McDonalds. The one that they showed at the fanciest McDonalds was located in Asheville. I promised Chris ahead of time that we would go and take pictures. The place is pretty ridiculous. It has a two sided fireplace, a vaulted ceiling, player piano, and wrought iron dividers. Even the employees were fancier than normal. It was pretty amazing. Did I mention how cold it was? It was freezing outside, literally. It was snowing when we got into Milo to drive down to Biltmore Village, nothing major, just a few flurries. Still, it was super cold and windy. Luckily Matt and I had planned ahead and packed lots of warm accessories to help us through. I can't possibly describe the Biltmore Estate so I'm not even going to try. But it is beautiful and if you ever get a chance to, I would go.

Thanksgiving is gone but the leftovers are not

2009-11-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't say our Thanksgiving went off without a hitch but I think it was a pretty smooth ride. It took a little while longer to get the turkey in the oven than we had anticipated which turned out ok because Steph and Linda were also running a little behind too. The group agreed that Catarina's candied yam recipe was amazing. Linda stuffing was delicious, really delicious. And I can't say enough about Steph's filling. I could have just eaten that. Matt's turkey got rave reviews. There was so much food. S&L also made a veggie platter, brussel sprouts, and green beans. We all ate way too much and then lazed on the couches and watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, ordered special from netflix since Matt had never seen it. Before we got to taste the apple pie, which was pretty beautiful, Zelda managed to pull the pie off the table. Luckily the pie tin landed on the bottom corner so the pie wasn't ruined, just smooshed. So it became more of a apple crumble than a pie. I guess she figured that since we had allowed her some turkey with her dinner she would just serve her own pie. The pie was delicious, crumbled or not, and the ice cream was fantastic. The pumpkin pie was also wonderful and so was the cheesecake that Linda made. At one point, Linda fell alseep on the futon and Zelda mirrored her position and fell asleep too. As you would expect, we had a lot of leftovers. I love Thanksgiving leftovers, I could eat them for weeks if I could. As it is we had them at least one meal every day since Thursday. I wish there were more, but we're slowly running out of them, dish by dish. Now we're starting to gear up for Christmas.

The night before Thanksgiving and no one was stirring not even the puppy

2009-11-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

Its the night before and we have things a rollin. I baked up the pumpkin this morning but I haven't gotten around to the seeds yet. I baked the pumpkin pie already and it looks delicious. I still have to make the apple pie in a little while. The cheddar cheese ice cream is getting frozen right now. I tasted teh base though and its amazing. I love cheese. I think its going to go wonderfully with the apple pie. I also already baked the yams so that I only have to mix them up tomorrow when its their time. Zelda has been lending me her support all day by sleeping for most of it. When we took the turkey out of the fridge it was still frozen so we are doing what Alton Brown suggested and it seems to be working. I still don't fully trust him but he's on a trial period now. I'm not really in charge of the turkey though, thats all Matt's work. I'm just here for moral support. I think it'll work out just fine. Its going to be a low stress day tomorrow. At least thats what we're hoping for. Hope you all have a great day tomorrow!!!

The bird is in the fridge

2009-11-22T17:46:00.000-05:00

Our Thanksgiving shopping is officially done, except for two things that I want to wait on. I got the yams for 25¢ a pound. Steph and Linda joined us last Saturday night for some chocolate peanut butter bread pudding and Thanksgiving planning. 3/4s of us are very in to cooking so it was an excited session. Thankfully Steph usually has a level head and was realistic about how much food four people can actually eat. I believe it narrowed down to four appetizers, a turkey, a tofurkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, filling, yams, a vegetable dish, cranberry sauce, gravy, cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and apple pie with cheddar cheese ice cream. There will also be drinks for merry making; Steph is bringing a warm cider type drink and there will be wine. Matt did such an amazing job with last year's turkey that he is in charge of this year's as well. Luckily this year its a much more manageable eleven pounds. This is the first year I'll be using Catarina's candied yams recipe. It was so delicious last year that I got the recipe from her. We're going to be having dinner at about one in the afternoon. That way we can eat, lounge around and go in for round two. It promises to be a wonderful day with our surrogate family since we can't be with our actual families this year.

It's like Candy Land with drugs...but not the way you're thinking

2009-11-14T22:40:00.017-05:00

The trip to GSK yesterday went well - definitely worth the time. The interesting part ended up being the networking session at the end, and not so much the drug development simulation game. The game is a little hard to describe, but I'll give it a go. First off, it's a board game, and doesn't really involve any actual skill. The woman who developed it described it as being essentially the same as Candy Land, but it's closer to a cross between Candy Land and Monopoly. They sit you at a table with a couple other people (four others, in my case), and your table represents a company. The players break into two teams, representing project teams within the company. The company has a budge of about 200 million dollars or so, which both project teams draw from. Each project team also ends up getting 15-20 "patent years" early in the game, and part of the goal is to retain as many patent years as you can by the time you reach the end, as you get a certain profit based on how many patent years you have remaining. All you end up doing, however, is to move your piece around the board (either by rolling the dice or taking a chance card) and do what it says on the space on which you land. Often, the space just tells you to spend some money and go back to the start. The point of the game, I take it, is to give you a sense of the pitfalls of the drug development process - for example, your time under the patent tends to be largely eaten up by the development process, and most drugs you start with never make it to market. Apparently, they have new employees play the game - maybe so they know what they're getting into. I had hoped that the game might incorporate the skills and knowledge of the players to a greater extent - for example, maybe have a team with grad students from biology, chemistry, business, engineering, and law, and have them work together to walk a fake drug through the development process. That would be a lot harder to put together, I'm sure, and given that this was the first time that GSK has had an education workshop like this (and that the stated goal was just to give us an idea of what the industry and drug development are like), I can see why they set it up that way.

As I alluded to earlier, my favorite part was the networking session. I'm usually not a big fan of those types of things, but I was able to talk to a VP of development who gave me some very interesting and useful information about some of the jobs in drug discovery. Apparently, there are more opportunities for analytical/computational-type people than I had thought. Obviously, my training isn't in those areas, but they are approaches I find interesting - and I'm doing what I can to pick them up.

Enter the Matt

2009-11-11T23:01:00.002-05:00

Kelly has convinced me that posting every now and then might be a good idea – so Hello, Internet! As I write this, Zelda is being her usual rambunctious self, rooting around the living room and finding new things to chew. I’m a little surprised, actually, as she’s usually sleepy enough at this point to keep her mostly stationary. Then again, normally I’m able to give her a walk in the evening, but tonight was a little too rainy for that. Eh, she’ll conk out soon enough.

Work has been going reasonably well. I’m still at the point where most of the day is taken up by fly work, but hopefully, the stock I’m making will prove to be healthy, and I can start spending more time in other parts of the lab. Spending hours on the scope is pretty mind-numbing, so to make up for it, I’ve been listening to more podcasts than I otherwise would. One of my favorites is the Penny Arcade/PvP Dungeons & Dragons podcast, but the most recent series ended a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been looking for something else to fill the void. It’s been harder than I expected – I’ve found a couple of good D&D podcasts, but none have that Jim Darkmagic…magic.

This week has been pretty ordinary, but I have something pretty interesting coming up on Friday. I’ll be going to the GlaxoSmithKline campus in RTP for a drug development simulation game with other young professional types. They haven’t told us much about what that’ll entail, but I’m eager to find out. I’ll try and post later to let everyone know how it goes.

43 days till Christmas, not that I'm counting

2009-11-11T19:58:00.001-05:00

SoI went ahead and decorated the whole spare room for Christmas. Yes, I know that its not even Thanksgiving yet but Christmas decorations are so beautiful. I think its a shame that we only get to see them for a month. Plus, they are helping to encourage me as I dig my heels in and make my Christmas presents. The tight budget this year means everyone is getting lovingly hand made presents. My poor little sewing machine is ready to give up. I've also been playing with paint and yarn and pretty soon I'm going to be drilling holes. Sorry to be cryptic but since my readers are most likely those people who would get a present from me, I don't want to ruin it for y'all. Zelda isn't too happy about my crafting. She wants me to pay more attention to her. When she realizes that I'll be at the machine a while she lays down in her little bed and naps. Like many adolescents, Zelda does a whole lot of sleeping these days.
On the cooking front, Matt and I are working on cutting our budget. This means that we must have less fancy dinners. Not that many extravagant ingredients. I feel like beans are going to become a oft seen dinner companion. Speaking of which, I made beans today. They not only have the benefit of being cheap to make but making them from scratch makes them taste so much better than getting them out of the can. Because we had fresh made beans I made Mexican food for dinner. It has been years and years since I made chile rellenos but I think they came out pretty darn good. Oh! I almost forgot. I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies this weekend. They were super tasty. I made the pumpkin puree myself with a cute little pumpkin that Matt bought me. I still have more left and he has requested some pumpkin bread.
After a long day of crafting, cooking, and cleaning I need to relax. Thanks to my mother, I cannot sit and watch tv without feeling antsy so I generally have something to do in the evenings. I am currently spending my evening tv moments doing this pattern. I don't know what it is yet but its fun to see it take shape, bit by bit.

We have a S.T.A.R. puppy!

2009-11-05T09:02:00.000-05:00

Last night was our final senior puppy class. The goals of this class were to give our puppy the skills to pass the American Kennel Club's S.T.A.R. puppy program. We had a series of tests last night that Zelda had to pass in order to graduate. Zelda passed with flying colors. The tests were: 1. sit stay in a specific spot, 2. walk sit walk, 3. sit stay on top of a platform, 4. go through a chute (short tunnel), 5. jump over an obstacle, 6. allow a stranger to examine her ears and paws, 7. go through a long tunnel, 8. sit stay in front of a stanger, 9. down stay, 10. come from a distance and then as a plus we were supposed to do a trick if they knew one. Zelda only had a problem with #8, mostly because she loves people so she wanted to get a belly rub. A lot of the other puppies originally had problems with #'s 3, 4 & 7. Zelda, being a dachshund, has never had a problem going through tunnels and she loves to get on the highest spot she can reach so the platform thing was no problem. We got a certificate and ribbon that said she passed the class and now we have to send off for her S.T.A.R. medal. The trainer gave us each an evaluation and she said, "Zelda is a wonderful little dog who probably would enjoy almost any class." She also reccomended that we skip the next level of class and go to either Family Dog 2 or the Canine Good Citizen class. Impressive.

On another note, Zelda and I have been puttering around the house trying to organize everything. The past week or so we've been concentrating on the spare bedroom. Sadly, since nobody sleeps in there it ends up being a catch-all room. No more! We are nearly done organizing and getting rid of things nobody wants/need. At the same time we've been trying to set up the room as a man cave/craft room, as we had originally intended. The desk is now cleared and is currently housing my sewing machine for christmas presents. While all my craft things are hidden throughout the room they are almost entirely out of site. The decorations are going ot be very guy compatible--no flowers and lace. Its going to be all Star Wars and video games. Its not done yet but its getting there. Double bonus: Zelda gets incredibly tired checking everything out while I'm working.

Some food pictures

2009-11-04T08:30:00.000-05:00

I know, its been a lot of pictures lately. I remembered to finally take all these pictures off of the camera so while I still remember I'm showing you guys. I know I said I cook a lot and here are some of the dishes I've been doing.

This is an FLT (facon, lettuce, and tomato). I believe that the
tomatoes are from our garden and the bread is homemade
rosemary olive oil bread. Yum

This is what Matt calls fancy salad

I made my own pasta

Which made me want to make real fettuccine alfredo, not that cream stuff Americans usually make. This alfredo is only butter and cheese. Oh yeah!

Blueberry bread pudding with a lemon rum sauce. The blueberries were hand picked by Matt and me.

Zelda pictures

2009-11-03T08:30:00.001-05:00

I take pictures of Zelda like people take pictures of their kids. I don't get around to posting them as often as I should. So here is a montage of Zelda pictures, in all her ridiculousness.

State Fair, 2009

2009-11-01T20:48:00.001-05:00

Ah State Fair, how I love you. It never dissapoints. Matt, Steph, Linda, and I took off early to the fair on Friday afternoon and met up with Jess and Jacob. I'm putting up a slideshow of this year's highlights because otherwise there'd be too many to pick from. The major part of any State Fair, at least to me, is the food. This year's new additions were fried HoHos and chocolate dipped bacon. We didn't manage to get around to the HoHos but the bacon booth was near the front of the line so we headed there right after we got our corn fix. I'm a vegetarian but chocolate dipped bacon was so insane that I had to try it. I'm not sure I even need to say it but it was fantastic. I think its probably hard to go wrong with bacon in general. But yeah, chocolate on bacon with a little bit of sea salt, mmmm. I only had one bite but felt it was necessary to do it it in order to faithfully describe the fair experience. Along with the mandatory fried veggies and fried cheese, this year Steph and Linda had ostrich burgers and Matt tried his very first corndog. We also made sure to get a cup of the NC State ice cream that they make on their campus. As always the fair food was both amazing and unsettling at the same time, in the best possible way. As it turns out a friend of ours won several of the crafting competitions at the fair this year. Tony Perdue is in charge of the very expensive microscopes in the biology department. He also grows his own cotton, spins his own yarn, and then knits beautiful pieces out of it. The little old ladies who are in charge of those competitions were all a flutter when we told them we were friends of his. Looking at some of the entires this year has inspired me to enter a few of the contests myself next year. I'm pretty sure I have the skills to at least place in some of the competitions. This year we made sure to get to the pig races a good 45 minutes early to get seats. I think that the duck racing portion is actually my favorite part but they're all pretty cute. To sum it up the NC State Fair delivered once again.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

8th Annual Carrboro Weiner Dog Day

2009-10-18T20:34:00.005-04:00

We made it back from Richond today just in time to take Zelda to meet up with lots of wiener dog friends. I didn't get a chance to finish her costume but oh well. It was pretty chilly outside so we put her in her jack-o-lantern sweatshirt. I know there are a lot of people out there who don't believe in putting dogs in clothes BUT, small dogs have a much higher surface to volume ratio. That means that when it gets cold, they lose body heat a lot quicker than big dogs. I will admit, Zelda does have a couple of frivolous outfits, but on the whole her clothes are for warmth. I almost wish I had put her coat on or a t-shirt underneath because by the time we left the festival she was shaking. Her parents are push-overs so she ended up being held in my sweatshirt. There were lots of contests and we entered Zelda in a few of them. It turns out that our puppy classes and diligent training sessions have paid off. They had a musical sit, its like musical chairs except when the music stops you have to have the dog sit. The last dog who sits is out. Well, Zelda kicked all the other dogs' butts. She is the 2009 Musical Sit Champion! She didn't do as well in the Doxie limbo contest, where they have a stick and they have to go under it. At the end they basically have to crawl to get under and a lot of them try to jump over instead. She got close to the end but no cigar. We'll have to work on that one for next year. Our friend Tangi was there with her two doxies. Her female won the bobbing for weinies contest. They put three hot dog pieces in a little plate of water and the dog that ate their three pieces first won that round. It was pretty adorable. It turns out that when they lived in Florida Tangi's dog didn't drink enough water so Tangi would put treats in water so that she would get water while eating. She was a pro. We all had a really good time and Zelda was all worn out when we got home. The pirate won the costume contest, I think the skunk should have won, but you can decide for yourselves.

Limbo

Costume contest winner

My choice for winner

Tangi's kids

The winning sit

Badgers are all around us

2009-09-29T17:15:00.000-04:00

In german:
Dachs= badger
hund= dog

I urge all of you out there to be careful. Before Zelda came into our lives I had no idea how prevalent badgers were in my life. I still haven't seen an actual one but she assures us that they are to be found all over the house. I trust her because she was bred to hunt badgers. Her little body has been genetically engineered for hundreds of years to be a lean, mean, short legged, badger hunting machine. When she starts digging it can only mean one thing, a badger has been found. A list of where she has found their scent so far:

our pillows
our bed
the corners of the carpet
the nightstand (wood)
Matt's lap
any and every blanket
the couch
her crate
her food bowl
her water bowl
my backpack
paper

So see? Be careful because if this list is any indication, your house may also be crawling with unseen badgers.

All about Zelda

2009-08-24T09:55:00.002-04:00

You would think that not working would leave me lots of time to update the blog. However, I have chosen to clean and cook and nap instead. I have been told that I am sorely lacking in Zelda updates. I have lots to post but I'll start with that. Zelda is now 5 months old. My hands and arms were incredibly thankful that she had stopped biting for a while. Sadly, now that she's teething she has started biting again. *sigh* So I'm working all over again to break her of it. I think its starting to work. Her coat is coming along nicely, her little tail has a line of fur like a long flag. Zelda hasn't been eating much lately because of the whole teething thing. There is supposed to be an all natural version of baby orajel that I can give her but I can't seem to find it. In the mean time Matt figured out that if we give her one of her frozen teething toys to play with for a little while before meals she'll eat more. This past weekend we took her to the Durham dog park for a play date. We joined a meet-up group for owners of dachshunds. It was really cute to see them all playing together. It turns out that Zelda is very submissive. She didn't know what to do with the other dogs but she managed to have every person there rub her belly. Some of them picked her up and gave her kisses as well.
We've signed up for senior puppy classes at the local ASPCA and they start tonight. The first class is just an orientation for the puppy parents so Zelda is hanging out by herself tonight. But starting next week she's going to be socializing and professionally training once a week. They offer lots of different classes there so we'll see how we like this one first and then maybe continue on with some of their more advanced classes.
As I said in the beginning I've been doing a lot of cooking/baking lately. I've been making my own pizza. I started off just using the premade dough from Trader Joes but I decided to go more adventurous and make my own. Matt will tell you it wasn't the best consistancy but the flavor was fantastic. So I need to work on that. I want to experiment with some other toppings as well. I've been making BLTs too. Or FLTs for me. We used up the last of our home grown tomatoes so I'm back to using bought ones. I am making my own bread to make the sandwhiches, Matt loves the rosemary olive oil bread. I think he's right it goes really well with the other flavors. I've been making these restaurant quality salads too. Matt gets chicken with his, I get blue cheese, mmm cheese. I've been experimenting with that too. I think so far the best chicken I made was the tequila lime one. I make nachoes for us sometimes. I've been making the beans from scratch because not only is it like 50x cheaper that way, its also 50x better tasting. I'm making my own pasta this week too. Tomorrow actually. I'm kind of nervous but the internet and Nigella Lawson tell me that its no big deal. So I'm going for it. I'll let you know how it comes out. Last night's dinner was pumpkin pancakes with (f/b)acon and an egg scramble with sauteed mushrooms, onions and tomatoes. Pumpkin pancakes are one of the best things ever invented.
On the baking front, I've been into cakes lately. A couple of week's ago I made a modified version of Nigella's quadruple chocolate cake. Tasty. Last week I went with a chocolate stout cake and homemade frosting. Also delicious. Today I'm going to make what I'm calling a strawberry lemonade cake. Its going to be a twist on a recipe that my Tia Joann gave me a while ago. The regular cake is phenomenal so I'm hoping this will be too. You're probably thinking, "maybe you should be eating all those sweets" and you're probably right. So to keep that from happening Steph and I have started a weekly baking exchange. That way we don't have too much to eat. Steph has recently taken up baking in an attempt not to bug Linda while she's studying. The cookies she gave us last week were amazing so I fully encourage the new hobby. I'll try and do a craft update next time but I want to eat my lunch (leftovers, yum!) I'll post pictures too once I get my cord from upstairs, the layer of the beast.

We're almost there!

2009-07-30T11:21:00.001-04:00

As I must these days, I'll start with a Zelda update. She gets her final parvo shot this weekend. That means that her exile from the outdoors and other dogs is almost over. YAY!!! This also means that we will be able to start taking her on walks. I've convinced myself that this will cut down on a lot of her biting Matt and I. She does it the most when she gets really excited and playful. If she's exhausted from walking she won't get like that, plus she gets more exercise than we can give her right now. I don't know if I mentioned it before but the medicine the vet gave her did it's job and her poop is now lovely and firm. Just what you wanted to know. She does this silly little dance when its feeding time that Matt just loves. I'm going to have to get a video of it this weekend because it is pretty cute.
Steph is out of town this week for a Ladies Family Weekend. Linda couldn't go because she started her new grad program this week (go Linda!). So we invited her over to watch So You Think You Can Dance. Its our favorite show, this also includes Matt who has learned quite a bit about critiqueing dances now. To go along with the show I made a delicious blueberry bread pudding with brown sugar rum sauce. It was divine. Linda brought some vanilla ice cream to go with it. mmmm, I love dessert. We had a great time and she might be joining us for the results show tonight if she gets all her work done. If you haven't seen the show let me break it down for you. Its kind of like American Idol, except with dancers, and way better. You can only do so much with singing but dancing can be completely different from one dance to the next. They start off with twenty people-- ten guys, ten girls. Each week they're assigned a random dance style and they get five hours with a choreographer that shows them what they'll be doing. Its pretty amazing. My favorite girl got voted off last week which was really sad but her partner, Brandon, is still on and going strong. Let me direct you to some of the dances from this season. Brandon/Janette tango (hot!!) Brandon/Janette jazz (seriously awsome) and let me warn you about this last one, it made everyone on the show cry, I cried, Jacob cried, its very touching and beautiful Ade/Melissa contemporary piece about breast cancer. Don't say I didn't warn you (I'm getting a little misty thinking about it).
I have two weeks of work left which is insane. Looking for a job sucks, especially in this economy. Nobody is hiring. Oh well, maybe I'll just get started on my Esty.com career sooner than I had dreamed of.

Finally more pictures

2009-07-23T20:01:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the lack of pictures. We've been taking them but I couldn't find my cable for the camera. Matt says he thinks she's grown since we brought her home. I can't tell. Let's see. We had to take Zelda back to the vet last Wednesday because she was having diarrhe. Our vet didn't see anything in her poop sample but he thought it sounded like coccidiosis which is a type of bacteria thats usually found in the gut. Sometimes when puppies get stressed the bacteria overgrows and causes intestinal problems. He gave her some medicine that she loves, it kinda smells like minty white chocolate. She's also started going through a biting phase, which I'm told could last a year. Hopefully it won't. She does seen to be getting better at understanding that we don't like it. At least she's stopping faster than she was before. We took her over to Jess and Jacob's a while ago and she got to meet their cats, Gandalf and Sauron. Sauron wouldn't come by but Gandalf finally plucked up the courage and Gandalf and Zelda touched noses and then licked each other. It was adorable. Here are some pictures. I think my favorite is the one of her in one of her t-shirts posing in front of her potty. Enjoy!

IDENTIFYING MECHANISMS REGULATING WNT SIGNALING DURING POSTEMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT" has been accepted

2009-07-22T13:30:00.000-04:00

Truly frightening. Well, I guess thats that. I just have to get Mark to give me the last signature and I'm done! I'm also suddenly extremely exhausted. I'll write more later. I just thought you'd all like to know. I have lots of Zelda pics/stories to post but that'll have to wait till I'm home. Suffice to say she has become the center of the universe and Matt and I have become those people who can only talk about their dog.

Potty training success!

2009-07-06T22:12:00.002-04:00

Its something we don't really have yet. But not for lack of trying. She did use her potty twice today all by herself, which is pretty impressive considering she's only been at it for two days. I think Zelda is getting more adorable by the day. Pretty soon she's going to be a cute overload. She's such a little cuddle bug too. We had her first vet appointment this morning. Our vet came with high recommendations from some of our friends, and they were right, he's awesome. Zelda appears to be in good health, we set up a schedule to finish her vaccines and take care of flea and heartworm medicines. He took a moment to weigh her for the records...she came in at a whopping 4lbs. Oh yeah! She's a big girl.

My defense is looming on the horizon. Less than 48hours are between me and what I hope will be victory. I went over my slides with Mark this afternoon and he said it looked really good. He changed a few things, told me to add some other stuff, but the overview was good. He also told me not to freak out (lol) that he knows I'm going to do great. Its weird when he says that, I'm not used to that many words of encouragement from him. I'm still super nervous, which is dumb because I know this material, its my work. Steph, Linda, and Matt are going to play the audience tomorrow night for a trial talk. I'm going to be home most of tomorrow practicing so hopefully I'll have it down by the evening.

**Matt says that someone might have accidentaly taught Zelda that when you make kissy noises near her head its time to roll over for someone to rub her belly. I'm sure it was completely inadvertant. It does remind of another doxie I know that still loves to be kissed on the side of his head the way he did when he was little. Maybe we shouldn't encourage it...but she has such a lovely tummy...

Happy Fourth of July!!

2009-07-05T13:52:00.001-04:00

Yes, I know that was yesterday but we were a little preoccupied and I didn't get to the blog. Well, it has finally happened, Princess Zelda has come home. We picked her up a little before 1:30pm yesterday and drove her home. She was very confused and upset for most of the drive home but Mary had sent a blanket that smelled like Zelda's mom Summer so that seemed to help her quite a bit. She really didn't know what to do once we let her out of her carrier. The longer she's here though, the more comfortable she's become. **I had to run away on an emergency, someone pooped on her potty for the first time.** We've had a few accidents but we're doing better. We bought Zelda a potty for her so that we don't have to run her up and down the stairs every half hour. Plus then when she's alone she doesn't have to hold it, she can just go on her potty. She's not perfect at it yet but she's getting there. We make a huge deal of it when she gets it right and she has these amazing treats taht are only for potty training. They have no grain, no fillers, and are made of USDA beef. They actually just look and smell like jerkey. For some reason she hates her crate. We've tried to put her in there but she just freaks out. She is a great napper, although she fights it like a little kid. Her eyes get all heavey but she keeps struggling to keep them open. She also loves to give puppy kisses. She also loves her toys, especially the one her grandparents from Las Vegas sent her. She only figured out this morning that she can chew both ends. My absolute favorite things she does is run. I put in a video of it in case you wanted to see. Its too funny. She doesn't have very good control of her limbs still so when she runs she bounds around and sometimes her back legs catch up with her front and she ends up running forward while her body is sideways. Its hilarious.

We're sending out, a major love, and this is our message to you

2009-06-29T12:02:00.000-04:00

Oh Michael. Last week was a long one. Matt was gone to a conference in Boone, NC, I finished up my thesis, and one of my childhood heroes died. I know for people who weren't big Michael fans think its kind of weird that some of us are so upset by his death. Matt doesn't understand it either. I know he was weird but I still love the MJ I knew growing up. His music was a huge part of my childhood. I still remember when the music video for Thriller came out and I was not allowed to watch it but I hid behind the door and saw part of it and got freaked out. (sometimes parents do know what they're talking about) I had a red leather jacket when I was five or six that had all the zippers on it, I thought it was so cool. I had a sweatshirt that had him on it in a yellow sweater vest and had matching clip on earrings. I can't even tell you how many time I've seen Captain Eo. I was incredibly upset when they decided to replace it at Disneyland. It just feels like a part of my childhood died. I always had this hope that Michael would make a comeback and be who he was when I was a kid. Thats the Michael I'm going to remember anyways.

Like I said, Matt is back which is wonderful. I hate it when he's gone. Its so boring and lonely. We did a lot of cleaning/tidying yesterday. I washed all of his clothes that he brought back from the conference while he went to do the grocery shopping. I finally got around to vacuuming the living room. I also put all of Zelda's things away in her very own drawer, hung up her clothes and set out her bed. I think the closer it gets to her coming home the more nervous Matt and I get. I'm sure there will be lots of pictures on Sunday of her first day at home. I don't know how I'm going to make it through the week until then.

Finally, I finished writing my thesis. Mark has okay'd it and I'm going to pass it out to my committee today. Scarey! Which means that I need to put together my talk this week. I have my defense a week from Thursday, which is July 8th at 2pm. Thats a scarey thought too. I just want it to be over. Its going to be a stressful week and a half. Matt has to give joint lab meeting the day before my defense and he always gets stressed out before he has to do that. Hopefully we won't start throwing things at each other before the end, lol.

This just in!!!!

2009-06-11T21:50:00.001-04:00

Raindrops keep falling on my head

2009-06-11T21:04:00.002-04:00

Wow, two posts in one day. Its crazy. I was moved to post again because I just dropped Matt off at his lab get together. It literally started pouring cats and dogs outside. There has been a ton of lightning and thunder all over the place. When I was a kid we used to "calculated" the distance of the lightning by counting Mississippi's from the flash until we heard the thunder. In our scientifically derived method, one Mississippi equaled one mile. Now by these ultra sophisticated methods I believe that just before I got out of the car when I returned home, the lightning must have been in the parking lot because I didn't even finish saying one before the thunder sounded. eeeeee!!!! Needless to say the short walk back to the apartment got me totally soaked but it was fun.

What's new pussycat?

2009-06-11T13:03:00.000-04:00

Its Thursday and Dave has gone to the Wnt meeting in DC for the next four days. Which means, I'm all alone in the Maroni Lab. *sigh* At least nobody is here to hear me talking to myself. Its is 23 days until Zelda comes home. I've been badgering her caretaker to send another picture because its been too long since we've seen her. Scariely enough, I think we have gotten almost everything we'll need when she comes home and a couple that she doesn't *need*. The main thing thats lacking is her food but we're waiting on that so it doesn't get funky before she gets here. The only really big job left is to get a list of questions that we want to ask the vet as first time parents and finish puppy proofing the house. The upstairs minus spare 'oom is almost ready. There are a few more tidying/blocking from puppy's reach things that still need to be done. The downstairs is another matter altogether. There are quite a few things that won't be able to be moved so we're going to have to watch her all the time. Its not bad, we're supposed to be doing that so potty train her anyways. Matt and I have decided that she's going to spend her first week or so only upstairs. The puppy book and the messege boards I've read have said to keep the puppy confined to a small room or room for a while so she doesn't get overwhelmed.
On other non-puppy related news. Matt is going out tonight with his lab. They're celebrating a paper. I'm going to drop him off and then go back home and watch So You Thing You Can Dance. Its kind of a bummer because two nights in a row we won't hang out together. Tomorrow is Doug's last day and we're going to He's Not to celebrate his time in the lab with a few blue cups. Or if it rains, some fried pickles and garlic fries at PT's. Matt won't be joining us because he's reviewing a paper and it needs to be finished by Monday. Which brings me to my next topic. Saturday is our first D&D game. Yipee!!!! My character was the last to be finished and she still needs a last name and I need to write out her background story. She is a half-elf bard named Laeriel, which means "daughter of song" in Tolkein elvish. Because I'm a nerd like that.

This is the end...

2009-06-08T18:13:00.001-04:00

Or more like a beginning of the end and the soon the beginning of a new beginning. Or something like that, Mark and I looked over my figures today and we'll do it again tomorrow in detail. He actually liked the pictures that I chose which is crazy. We're still not sure about a date yet but we're emailing my committee tomorrow to see when they can meet. He also said I could stay until the end of the last summer session if I wanted to incase I didn't have something planned or lined-up or something. It was and continues to be a lot of thinking and I'm going to have to figure it out soon. *bleh* Being a grown-up sucks sometimes.
On a happier note, Matt and I decided on a date...for the puppy to come home. Yay! We're going to pick her up on July 5th. I even confirmed it with the breeder this morning. She also said, "She is the most loving little girl. I cannot seem to put her down. It's hard to resist all that lovin." teehee! She's going to be such a little cuddle bug, I can hardly wait. We also finalized her name and we ordered her tags today. Zelda. I think it'll be perfect. She already has a little pile of things waiting for her here. Most of them are essentials but there are a few frivolous things. We made her first vet appointment this morning. We have to make sure she's healthy when we bring her home. EEEEP! I'm getting a little nervous.
Finally, if you try to reach me I won't be able to answer as I lost my phone and am still in the process of getting a new one. email me or call Matt if you need something.

EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

2009-05-30T16:03:00.007-04:00

Well, we're back from Eastern North Carolina. It was a wonderous morning. Matt and I met our puppy this morning. So much to say about it. First, as I was hoping, Matt fell in love with her as soon as she came into the room. He liked her so much he let her knibble on his fingers. I knew she was tiny but I guess not having anything for a size reference I didn't realize just how small. As you can see in the pictures she's a tiny little thing. Don't let the pictures fool you either, she does not stay still for more than a couple of seconds at a time. She loved the taste of my shirt but she loved Matt's watch even more. At some point she figured out that she could "dig through" Matt's shirt and was trying to wiggle her way around his back. Mary (her surrogate mom) told us that she's the most rambuncious of her litter. Boy did she show it. Normally pups are a little shy and stay still for a couple of minutes with people they don't know but she took to us right away. She also has a little cowlick on the back of her head. It was worse a couple of weeks ago but apparently its gotten better, I think its pretty darn cute. I wish we could have brought her home today but she needs more time to grow before we can do that. We did manage to pick a date though, July 5th. Thats the day she'll come to her foever-home. I'm a little exhausted from all the excitement so I'm going to take a little nap but I leave you with a few pictures of our darling little girl. Enjoy.

Excited about tomorrow!

2009-05-29T22:16:00.003-04:00

I'm super excited about tomorrow. We're driving to Washington, NC to meet our little girl in the morning. I should have a ton of pictures of her when we get home. Matt and I have been shopping and learning and getting things ready for when she comes home. I think we're going to wait until she's about eleven weeks old before we bring her home. That way she has more time to socialize and learn good puppy manners from her mom. Plus she so tiny its good for her to stay with the litter a little bit longer. Of course I wish I could bring her home right now. So far we have gotten her a collar, leash, toothbrush, two different puppy Kongs for teething puppies, two little dolls to cozy with, a little chew toy that can go in the freezer for soothing teething gums, a puppy gate (the one for large dogs since doxies can jump like nobody's business), and a set of puppy stairs so she learns early not to jump on and off the furniture. We don't want her to hurt her delicate back. She still needs a crate and some blankies, doxies LOVE blankies. According to the myirad of websites I've been to and the book we have, we're supposed to let her sleep in her crate for the first week so she gets used to her new surroundings and in case she has problems with her potty trips. I'm going to make a valient effort. I know Matt will not melt as quickly as I will once she starts crying. Of course, after the first week all bets are off. I've been trying to explain to Matt that we don't really have a choice about her sleeping with us. Its what they do. I haven't found a person yet on the tubes whose doxie hasn't managed to worm their way into the human's bed. It sure is lovely in the winter though, like having a hotwater bottle on your toes. Well, considering my eyes are still hurting from my idiotic escapde yesterday and the doctor said not to use my eyes too much today. (I'm an idiot and strained my eyes wearing my contacts, because I'm that cool) I should probably sign off. I'll leave you with a five week old photo.

Hullo!

2009-05-25T14:16:00.001-04:00

Its been almost a month since my last post, oops. On the bright side, I have been getting loads done in the meantime. My thesis writing is going swimmingly, I'm now working on the figures and Mark and I are going to talk about pictures tomorrow.
My darling friends Archie and Keiko were here visiting for the weekend. We didn't do a whole lot but we did eat quite a bit. We took them to Buns and Mama Dip's this weekend. Then this morning they tagged along to a Maroni Lab breakfast at the Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen. If Keiko doesn't gain weight from all that it is beyond me to help. We had a nice peaceful day yesterday. Lots of lounging around, lots of napping. This is the first time in three years that I've seen Archie. I'm sad to say that her accent is almost gone. No more "ber-gers" or "al-ooh-min-ium". I did fun have asking her opinion as a future doctor about all sorts of stuff. I made cheesecake for everyone on Saturday and while serving some yesterday Keiko cut her finger. I'm not really sure why she was using the giant knife to cut cheesecake but we've come to a consenus. The knife, now named Audry, has gotten a taste for blood and might be sentient. Just a warning to anyone who comes over and tries to cut stuff. The ladies were a big help this weekend with the cutting up bags. I've found that the rate limiting step to making the bag of bags is the making of the plastic yarn. They thought my giant plastic ball was very amusing.
Now, last but most certainly not least. I thought I would leave you with a picture. I should have lots more to put up on Saturday but until then you can adore this one.

Food

2009-04-30T16:25:00.000-04:00

Yes I'm sitting here in the dark, again. While I would like to be writing, it is really too dark in here to do it without straining my eyes. Believe me, I've tried. I was trying to think about things I could do but there are only so many recipes I can look at so now I'm still here so I thought of something else. I have recently had a lot of conversations with my friends about things that I love to do. I realized that as much as I love to cook, I don't talk about my creations that much on here. So I'm going to tell you about some of my recent culinary attempts.
Lets see...
Last week I made his awesome chicken/tofu dinner. I dipped each of them in egg and then a "breading" made of things I had in the house. It was matzo meal, crushed French's fried onions, garlic salt, lemon pepper, and freshly shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. I fried the tofu and chicken (separately) in a little bit of olive oil. When those were almost done, I boiled some soba noodles and then put them in a pan with more cheese, garlic salt, and a little more olive oil. We served it with the chicken or tofu on top of the noodles. It was fantastic. I didn't have any of the chicken but it smelled good and Matt assured me that it was very tasty.
When I first moved to Chapel Hill I bought myself some spring form pans with the intention of learning how to make cheesecake. Well its nearly three years later and they hadn't been used yet. This month in Bon Appétit had a bunch of delicious looking desserts, including a lemon cheesecake with brownie bottom. I learned many things Easter weekend: sometimes Alton Brown knows what he's talking about because to date none of my cheesecakes have cracked, my spring form pans are cheap and leak when following Mr. Browns directions, I'm really good at making cheesecake, sour cream mixed with sugar and baked is actually tasty. Don't worry about the leakage though, Matt saved the day by getting oven bags for the next cheesecake attempt. At some point, I will get a nice pan from Williams Sonoma that won't leak when put in a water bath. Since then I also made an Oreo cheesecake for Steph's wine party because I had a ton of Oreos left over from Catarina's going away party. For that I made these Oreo truffles. You grind up Oreos, mixed them with cream cheese, then dip them in chocolate. MMMM, very good. This time I made three different kinds: regular Oreo, mint Oreo, and ones that were half regular Oreo half Nutter Butters.
Matt bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday, which I have been wanting for a long time. I've made three batches of dark chocolate ice cream. The most recent batch also had bits of reeses peanut butter cups. I haven't really played around with it yet but I did make a mango lime sorbet that was pretty good. I have plans to make Mexican chocolate ice cream next. I think it'll be really good. I have the base recipe down so now its just up to my imagination and Matt, Steph, and Linda's stomaches to come up with new ones.
I know I never talk about it, but I love cheese. I made these really good bread thingys that were small slices of baguette topped with either goat's cheese and sauteed mushrooms or a mixture of fresh basil, blue cheese, and cream cheese. This is bad, now I want cheese. Well, I leave you with something that I learned yesterday while reading wikipedia entries about various cheeses that I like. Yes I realize that is a pathetic sentence. Apparently Spain and several Latin American countries like to put small chunks of white cheese in their hot chocolate and then when the cocoa is gone they eat the cheese. I'm really excited to try this. Spain generally uses manchego which is great because I love it.

A bit dusty around here

2009-04-29T17:18:00.000-04:00

Its been quite some time since I last posted. So much has happened since then. I'll post all the fun pictures from my birthday bowling, Steph and Linda's wine party, and our lovely picnic at Duke gardens. Once again I am sitting in the dark taking pictures of fly embryos. They look really nice though. The arm stripes are nearly perfect. Mark has ok'ed the Roc1b wing discs and almost signed off on the brains too. If I could just finish up the embryos I can begin to forget about them. Of course I need to finish up the Roc2 pictures too but that is a story for another day.
Matt and I celebrated our 30 monthaversary yesterday. We had a lovely dinner at Maggiano's where we had a sort of uncomfortable conversation about the future. Don't misunderstand, it was a good conversation. Its hard to be an adult and figure out what you want to be when you grow up. The whole grown up thing is pressing in on us with me graduating and Matt graduating in another year and a half or two. He's not sure what he wants to do next, I don't blame him, I don't really know what I want to do either. But it was very good to talk about. Matt has a couple of ideas on what he likes and some people that he can talk to about future possibilities and ideas. I had gnocchi and it was divine! Matt had a chicken spaghetti with a pesto alfredo sauce. We both decided on the larger portion since its only few dollars more and now we both have dinner for a couple of nights. As a poor graduate students making a meal stretch is always an awesome thing. Plus, now we don't have to think about what to make to dinner tonight, double bonus! It was a really lovely evening.

I just wanted to send a big hug and kiss to all my super supportive parents and brother and Moe. You guys have been really great lately and it means a lot to me.

Yay BIRTHDAY!!!

2009-03-25T10:05:00.004-04:00

I'm so happy. I love birthdays. So far it has been a fantastic day! I have had lots of texts and calls and FB messages. As much as I joke and "celebrate" early the best part of my birthday is knowing that I have so many people that I love in my life. Ok, enough of the sappy stuff. I haven't posted in a while but I thought I'd let y'all know what we're doing today. Matt made reservations for us to go to dinner at Kanki, a hibachi-style Japanese restaurant. We *might* stop by the book store for a minute to pick up a new book. Then on Saturday Steph, Linda, Matt and I are going to a fabric sale at The Scrap Exchange in the morning. Saturday night the four of us are going bowling and then back to our place to play some Guitar Hero. Yay! Mira made this picture for me as a birthday present. I think its kinda hilariously adorable.

The yo-yo of weather

2009-03-11T11:47:00.000-04:00

The weather here has been incredibly unpredictable lately. Well, actually weather.com predicted it but if you didn't have the tubes you would never guess what was coming next. The day we were at Steph's it rained cats and dogs the whole day. It had really started the day before. Then when we woke up on Monday morning, SNOW!!!! It was so beautiful. That was a week ago Monday. On the following Saturday it was 80F outside. WTF? I don't know how that makes sense. Today its 80F again and tomorrow its supposed to be 50F. It makes me wish that Matt's parents could have visited last weekend instead. Especially since its supposed to be in the low 50s, high 40s and rainy-- only a little bit higher than what they would have had at home. *sigh* Oh well, I just have to make sure that my food is really good when they all come over and eat. I'm still not sure about the menu. I'm going to consult Steph since she's had all of the meals I'm thinking about. Matt thinks anything I make will be good, but I want it to be great. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

I almost forgot, Matt and I think these are bunny tracks leading away from our stairs. I wanted to go find the bunny but we had to catch the bus instead.

Sometimes ethinic food is better in groups

2009-03-10T09:58:00.000-04:00

A couple of Sundays ago, March 1st to be exact, Matt and I went over to Steph and Linda's for a pierogi party. Steph's mom was in town and Doug has been dying to learn how to make them. Its one of those things, much like tamales, that is only good to make when you have a large group of people and you make a ton of them. Steph said that the last time they made them it took all day and they were ready to kill each other by the end of it. After having done it, I can imagine that. I was on rolling duty for most of the time and Matt was putting the filling in the pieces of dough that I rolled out. Doug, Steph, and Steph's mom took turns joining me rolling or filling. Linda had the unenviable job of boiling the pierogis. She said she liked it the best. Most of the ones we made were traditional mashed potatoes but there was also a small subset of saurkraut ones as well. I hadn't realized before but I love saurkraut. I guess that shouldn't have been surprising since I love just about everything that is made in brine. Steph sauteed the saurkraut with a little bit of onion and those went into the dough too. I know some of you are thinking, how could they do all that work on empty stomaches? Not too fear! I made a delicious cheddar jalepeno bread that I brought with us and they had made soft pretzels right before we arrived. The pretzels were divine. There was also this lovely dipping sauce from Southern Season that I'm going to have to get. To round it all out they had also made a key lime coconut pie. All that food talk makes me hungry. We left in good spirits, lots of pierogis and full tummies. I think we made somewhere around 225 pierogies

There is an update around here somewhere

2009-03-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

I know I've been bad about the updates recently. I apologize. I'll try and be better, probably. I'll update a little at a time since for somethings I have pictures. So I'll update until that point and then I'll track down Matt and steal his sd card so I can upload the pictures.
Let me think back, way back. Hmmm, interesting things that have happened. Well, recruitment time is almost over with and we've participated in exactly nothing this year. Last year it was a group effort and this year the Biology Department was left out of the whole thing. We weren't allowed to help plan or organize and subsequently most of us didn't participate. I don't want any of you to think that we were all being petty but we actually didn't get invited to help with almost anything and the few times we were they said something to the affect of "if you volunteer to clean or drive we're more likely to choose you to come to the event". I thought that was kind of rude because we probably would have done it either way. Oh well, Matt and I have been pretty busy lately anyway so I guess its ok. Actually we volunteered to present posters on the first weekend and they never had the decency to respond and let us know if we were or weren't presenting. Maybe next year we can do more.
Speaking of being busy, I think I mentioned before that Matt and I have going to the gym. I don't remembered if I said that we were going to step up our routine and start going even more often (read daily). That didn't work out so well. Not because we didn't have the resolve but I was feeling really run down and just sore all the time. At the same time, meat on tv was looking pretty tasty. It took a while but we finally put one and one together and realized that I needed to ramp up my protein intake. I think normally the amount I eat is fine but when I'm working out and trying to build some muscle I need more. Which makes sense. So now that I'm eating lots more protein I feel awesome and we can now go daily without wanting to die. I'm going to have Michelle Obama arms in no time.
The Oscars were a couple of weeks ago. I always love to watch them, although it was a ton easier when they started at five and ended nine. This was the first year that we got to watch it in HD. It doesn't help a lot of people. The dresses looked lovely but the faces, yikes. I made fondue for dinner. We did a Guinness and Irish cheese fondue with this awesome dense twelve grain bread, apples, and peppers. Yummy! I love cheese. Matt really liked it too, which is good. He made us a tasty salad so that we didn't only have cheese for dinner. It was a terrific evening, even though the Oscars website kept going down. Ok, I need to get back to reality.

Tune in next time to hear about snow and perogies.

Lab meeting, again?

2009-02-16T10:06:00.000-05:00

I just realized this morning that I have to give lab meeting on Wednesday. Its not a huge deal but it just means I have to rearrange my day to set everything up. Bleh. Also, while I have gotten a lot of stuff done lately, it doesn't feel like enough. It never does.
The university had a bomb threat last night. They have it set up so that we get text messeges in case of emergency. I looked this morning and they have decided that it was a hoax, which is good.
Matt and I don't really do anything big for Valentine's day. Like last year we "celebrated" by going to Red Robin. Its fun because all the high school kids are there too. They're all dressed up and its just so cute. We decided yesterday that we're going to step up our workout routine to everyday instead of every other day. I think it should go well. I am now able to run for half an hour without dying. When we started about a month ago it was twenty minutes and then I was ready to pass out. Yay exercise!

Go Heels! Boo dookies!

2009-02-11T19:05:00.016-05:00

Tonight is the first of our basketball games against dook. I'm excited about watching it on our TV. Hopefully we'll make their ugly fans cry again. That was fun.
I've been listening to Michael Jackson all day today. Matt and I saw an old "ripped from the headlines" Law and Order this weekend that was about a MJ type character. I couldn't get it out of my mind so I put my MJ playlist on my pud. Now, I think that people should at some point stop blaming everything in their childhood for how they turned out. The poor Jackson family though, they have a lot to blame. Or really mostly just their dad. Anyways, I always try and remember MJ as he was when I was a kid and in his fan club-- a black man that turned out the most awesome songs ever! I still get all giddy when I hear "Another Part of Me". It boggles my mind to this day that Matt didn't get to grow up seeing Captain Eo. I have to find that on dvd. Also on the MJ thought, my friend Mike was MJ for Halloween a couple of years ago and he said that a lot of his high school students didn't realize that MJ used to be a megastar for his music. WTF!!! Those kids' parents need to be fined for, I don't know, something. Thats just wrong. I digress. So, take home message of today: dook sucks and (old) MJ rocks.

Its here

2009-01-28T11:29:00.002-05:00

Matt took a picture of me with the box yesterday. It was huge! The delivery guys had the wrong address and so they didn't show up until about 5:30pm which means that I took half a day off for nothing. Oh well, I had a really tasty lunch and I may or may not have been eating a wedge of bleu cheese right before they showed up. mmmm, bleu cheese. When we bought it It came with free Geek Squad set up which we thought was ridiculous. It totally wasn't. The guy was super-duper nice and knew how to set up all the crap we have attached to our "family member". He also knew all the menus and settings that would be best for our set-up. Maybe the best part of it though was how pretty he wrapped up all the cables and whatnot. It looks so nice now. Not to mention that we just sat there and stared for like forever. I think I'm in love. Also its kinda huge. Not too huge, mind you. I'm not sure thats possible, but pretty huge.

Week three--Start!

2009-01-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

I didn't mention it in my previous post but in an attempt to be more healthy, and since all of the rest of our exercise comes from walking to and from the bus, Matt and I have started working out. Our apartment complex has a gym and its only a five minute walk from our apartment. So far we've been doing a pretty good job of going, even when we don't really feel like it. Its only the third week but already we're starting to see changes. Matt is building muscle and I don't pass out after running for five minutes. Yay us! As an added bonus, our health insurance offers and incentive program for working out and eating well.
We had a relatively quiet weekend. Nathan had a birthday party on Friday night so we hung out with everyone to celebrate for a while. I made bruschetta that had way too much garlic, as if that is possible. I also put some roasted tomatillos in it to mix things up. It seemed to go over well. Besides that though, not much happening. I was feeling under the weather on Saturday and Matt is in the middle of writing a paper so things were pretty quiet.
On the science front, I managed to complete an experiment last week. I having been planning to do a northern for a couple of months and with Paul, the tech from the Searles lab, I finally did it. I even got it done without getting an radiation on myself for any place else that wasn't supposed to have it. Bonus! I also got it done right the first time. Now I just need to repeat it one more time and I can check that off my long list of to dos.
Matt and I are super excited because our newest family member will be delivered tomorrow. After nine days of waiting and over a year of saving, it will arrive tomorrow!!! Maybe we'll take a picture of the three of us and post it later this week. I can't really think of anything beyond that. *sigh*

Snow Day!!!!!

2009-01-20T18:19:00.004-05:00

Matt came home with the pictures that he promised and now I share them with you. There is one from the little balcony outside our door, and of both of our cars with a blanket of snow. Oh, so much fun. The university ended up shutting down at 3:30pm and has a delayed opening tomorrow. I think its cute how you can only see a little nubbin of my antenna peeking out of the snow.

Quick holiday wrap-up

2009-01-20T08:48:00.002-05:00

We've been home for a while now but I'm only now getting around to blogging about it. I have a headache and its snowing so I'm still sitting here in my pjs watching the Inauguration coverage. Matt and I split for the holiday for probably the last time. Its too rough for us to have to separate for that long and at a time when you are supposed to be with your family. I spent my Christmas in Temple City this year with my mom, Tom, Chris, Moe and Thumper. Thumper isn't as warm as Matt is but he is almost as cuddly, so it wasn't too hard to sleep at night. My brother took me shopping at Company D, which is the store that is exclusive for Disney castmemebers and their families. Being a Disney fan, I was in heaven looking at all the Disney things that I didn't need. To top is off everything was on sale between 50-75% off and then Chris's 20% on top of that. It was awesome. I got a new hoodie that is a castmemeber only item, so Chris had to buy it for me. We had a really nice Christmas day. Mom got tamales, Tom made pozole, and Moe and I made too many desserts. Oh! I also made pimento cheese, a southern favorite, for the first time. It was kinda awesome. The family streamed in and I got to see a lot of my cousins that I only get to email or text or chat with here and there. There was way too much food, tons of fun and an auction where I won lots of stuff including a wine bottle that I had no time to drink.

--hot chocolate break--

Sorry, but I have a perfect view of our snow covered wooded area in front of our apartment and one of the parking lot. Both covered in snow! Real snow!!! I took a moment to step outside to see it all with the wind blowing snow in my face. Its so beautiful, and cold. I was confused when I first walked out because there are all these little blue-ish, green pebbles everywhere. It took me a minute but I figured out that they must be salt to keep the walkways safe for walkin'. Teehee, I've never seen that before. I have this delicious dark chocolate hot cocoa that we got from Target and I put little marshmallows in it so now I feel ready to continue.

Matt spent his Christmas In Michigan with his lovely family. Luckily we both have video cams in our laptops so we still got to see each other. We then met up in Florida for a family trip to Disney World!! w00t! I was super excited when we got to the airport because my dad and Debbie revealed that they had got me a first class ticket!! It was awesome, it was one of those planes that has a tv in every seat. I watched movies, had a few drinks and a lovely vegetarian breakfast. The only thing that sucked was that this was not too long after the big snowstorm in Vegas and it was still very cold. There was ice on the wings and no de-icing vehicles, so in order to melt the ice the pilot decided to wait for the dawn and then sit in the shade. Long story short, we missed our connecting flight and then had to run, literally, across the Atlanta Airport. We made it to Orlando safe and sound eventually. The first class ticket wasn't the last of the day's surprises. We didn't depart the Magical Express at the Beach Club Villas like normal, which confused me. Instead we got off at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, where I found out that my parents had bought a new time share there when they opened up recently. Its a beautiful hotel. Our rooms were savanna view, which meant that no more than ten feet from our room were wild african animals grazing. It was lovely to look out each morning to see a giraffe munching on a tree just outside.
Well, I've taken up a lot of time/room, so I'll finish my tales of Disneyworld and beyond.

Merry Christmas from the Fort!

2008-12-15T10:14:00.002-05:00

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)

2008-12-13T20:18:00.000-05:00

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

2008-12-02T11:40:00.003-05:00

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

2008-11-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

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!!!

2008-11-04T12:23:00.003-05:00

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!!!!

2008-10-28T15:51:00.004-04:00

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!!!!

2008-10-26T21:50:00.001-04:00

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!!!!

2008-10-24T10:05:00.000-04:00

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

2008-10-20T08:17:00.000-04:00

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"

2008-10-03T15:38:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-20T11:25:00.003-04:00

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...

2008-09-19T08:00:00.002-04:00

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!!!!!

2008-09-11T10:04:00.001-04:00

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!

2008-09-04T08:01:00.002-04:00

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

2008-09-03T08:04:00.003-04:00

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!

2008-09-02T08:49:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-29T08:34:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-26T20:09:00.001-04:00

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...

2008-08-20T09:35:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-19T09:45:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-12T17:00:00.001-04:00

Time flies, and so do we!

2008-08-07T11:18:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-04T09:18:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-01T10:31:00.004-04:00

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

2008-07-31T09:58:00.000-04:00

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

2008-07-30T09:49:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-29T13:56:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-27T21:27:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-25T10:53:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-23T15:59:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-18T12:00:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-15T10:46:00.003-04:00

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:

Wine tasting with the Peifer Lab and adjunct members
Mama Dips (jealous? you wouldn't be if you came to visit more often, sir)
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
Swap meet or thrift stores
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

2008-07-12T12:15:00.006-04:00

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:

garlic bread
stuffed mushrooms
poppers
guacamole
ranch dip
cupcakes
chocolate chip cookies
mini cheesecakes
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

2008-07-11T10:56:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-09T14:11:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-06T18:03:00.005-04:00

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

2008-07-03T12:16:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-03T12:11:00.002-04:00

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.