The yo-yo of weather

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

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

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?

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!

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

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!

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*