Thanksgiving is gone but the leftovers are not

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!

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!!

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

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!!!!

Raindrops keep falling on my head

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?

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...

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!!!!

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!

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!

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

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

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!!!

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

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