can you read my mind?

Updates

2012-01-12T08:56:00.001-08:00

So it's been about a month since I've written anything. It's probably been that long because not much has been happening around here.

Christmas: We stayed in Maine, again, and had a quiet Christmas. Christmas Eve we went to an open house at the son of a couple at our church. Then we went to church and Jeremy sang a solo. He did a wonderful job if I do say so. Christmas day we got up early (to us) to open presents before church. That afternoon we went to our friends' house from church for dinner and games. It was nice to have people to spend it with here since we couldn't be with our families.

2011 New Year's Resolution: Complete! I don't have any resolutions for this year - I figure we'll be busy enough with all the life changes coming our way. Which leads me to...

Pregnancy: I'm at 31 weeks and all is going well. He's getting to be quite the kicker/roller and we're enjoying feeling him move. We should have our first childbirth class tonight, assuming they don't cancel it because of the snow/ice that we're currently getting.

Work/School: Same old same old for me. Jeremy is hoping to finish his dissertation by August so he's been working hard at that. He also has two classes this semester and is doing contract work on the side so he's busy. Once he finishes his dissertation, it means big changes for us since we will most likely be moving to wherever he gets a job. We have no idea where that will be!

2012 will be an exciting year for us! We figure by the end of the end of the year, we'll have a baby and will most likely be in another state.

Sic 'em Bears!

2011-12-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

It's a great time to be a Baylor Bear. Our quarterback, Robert Griffin III, or RG3, won the Heisman this weekend! He is the first person from Baylor to ever win it. Heck, he's the first person from Baylor to finish above #4 in the voting. I am over the top ecstatic that he won. I watched every game this year that I could and the other ones I listened to online. After the Oklahoma game, I knew he had a good chance of winning the Heisman and he sealed that win a solid win over Texas the next week. Jeremy and I of course watched the trophy presentation on Saturday and yelled when they called his name. This is not only good for RG3, but for Baylor as a whole. We haven't exactly been known as a football powerhouse. Times are a changin'.

Not only is our football team 9-3 and heading to the Alamo Bowl, but our men's basketball team is ranked #6 and our women's basketball team is #1. Oh how different this is than when Jeremy and I were at Baylor. Sure our women's team was good and even won the NCAAW tournament our junior year, but our men's basketball team was awful. See, we were there when the whole Baylor basketball murder/scandal happened. Almost all of our players left the team, the coach left in disgrace, and we were put on probation by the NCAA. It was a tough few years. I'm so glad to see them doing so well now. Also, our football team was so bad, that we stormed the field when we beat KU our freshman year because it was our first conference win in years. KU! It must be so different to be a student at Baylor now and only know winning teams on the football field and basketball court.

Baylor Homecoming 2011

2011-11-18T08:33:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago Jeremy and I had the chance to go to Texas for Baylor's Homecoming. Jeremy made it into a work trip so his plane ticket, rental car, and food were paid for by work. Then we used his frequent flyer miles for my ticket so we only had to pay $10 for it. Basically, it was a free vacation! Jeremy left a couple days before me so he could actually work and then I joined him for a long weekend.

It was a lot of fun to be back at Baylor. The weather was in the 70s most of the time we were there, which was wonderful! We also got to see a lot of our friends and professors from college. This was also the first year I saw in person our football team win the Homecoming game! That was pretty exciting.

Of course we had to buy a Baylor onesie while there for our future Bear - class of 2034.

On Sunday we drove to Dallas to see my mom, stepdad, and grandparents. It was great to see them and spent some time with them. Monday we had to leave to come back to Maine. It was too short of a trip, but a lot of fun.

Moose Meat

2011-10-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

A guy at our church shot a moose not long ago and was asking if anyone wanted any (there was something like 626 pounds of meat!). Jeremy, of course, jumped on the chance. I mean, when will we get the opportunity for some free moose meat again? Jeremy told him he would take "a little bit" of meat. He gave us close to 9 pounds, not quite what I'd call "a little bit", but as Jeremy pointed out, it is a little bit when compared to 626 pounds.

We ended up with steaks, ground meat, and breakfast sausage. Our first attempt at cooking it was to make a stew. I used a recipe for beef stew and it turned out great! We both thought that the moose meat tasted like beef. If we didn't know better, we would have thought that is what we were eating.

Now we just have to figure out what we're going to do with the rest of the meat. Jeremy is wanting to grill some of the steak before it gets too cold. I'm thinking a chili with the ground meat might be good.

Ultrasound Pictures!

2011-10-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

I had my 19 week ultrasound yesterday and we found out that we're having a boy! We're pretty excited. It's weird to now be able to say "he" when talking about the baby, but we're getting used to it (I think). Here are some of the ultrasound pictures:

Last Camping Trip of the Season

2011-10-12T08:44:00.001-07:00

This past weekend Jeremy and I spent the weekend camping with a group from our church. They do a camping trip every year over Columbus Day weekend. We couldn't have asked for better weather this year for the event - Saturday and Sunday it was in the 70s and sunny. Friday was chilly, but manageable. This year's trip was at a nearby boy scout camp so there were little cabins with bunk beds we could use. It was pretty sweet. Also, it was only about 30 minutes from town so people could come and go as they wished. Several people came out for just a day and didn't spent the night.

The best part of the camping experience was that some of the people on the trip were morning people. That meant they got up ridiculously early and started the fire and coffee. That way, when the rest of us got up, the fire was hot and the coffee ready! I could get used to camping like that.

We ate a lot over the weekend. And when we weren't eating, we were talking about what we were going to eat next. It was pretty great. For most meals, all the family units made something and then people shared potluck style. Jeremy and I brought our pie iron, which was a big hit. I guess they're not as popular here as they are in da U.P. I think we made a couple of people into believers, especially after they saw us make breakfast, lunch, and dinner in it. (Hashbrowns, egg, and cheese for breakfast; grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch; and mushrooms, onions, and swiss for dinner)

Most of the daylight hours (when we weren't eating or talking about eating) were spent just relaxing. I did a lot of cross word puzzles and Jeremy got some reading done. The kids went swimming, because it was actually warm enough in October to swim. Crazy. The evenings were spent playing games. It was a lot of fun and I was sad it had to end and I had to go back to work Monday.

The Campsite:

By the water. This picture doesn't do justice to the fall colors.

"Vacation"

2011-08-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Not much has been happening around here lately. I've been working, Jeremy's been working. Same old, same old. We did take a "vacation" a couple weeks ago. I had some use-it-or-lose-it vacation time at work so I decided to use it. We went camping up north, in "The County." It was okay. It would have been better, but it rained every day. Camping + rain = no fun. It was great to see a different part of the state, though, even if we didn't see a moose.

We did one short (but torturous) hike on the trip in between rain showers. Jeremy found a trail that was .4 miles round trip, but it went up and back down a mountain. That means it was .2 miles straight up and then straight back down. It was horrible. I fell so many times on the way down. The view at the top was nice at least.

We also got some kayaking in when it wasn't raining one afternoon. This was much more fun than the hike.

Friday, our last day, we went up to Fort Kent for the Ploye festival. A ploye is basically a buckwheat crepe. Fort Kent is on the border with Canada and about an hour from where we were camping. It was so different up there from where we live in "Downeast" Maine. I have never heard so many people in the US speaking French. It was pretty cool. Also, we ran into a couple from our church while there! They were on a trip to Northern Maine and then Quebec. We ended up eating dinner with them before heading to the giant ploye.

The ploye was okay, but it started pouring while we were looking at the people making it. Go figure - it seemed to be the theme of the trip.

Maine Blueberries

2011-08-08T17:56:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year again here in Maine - blueberry season! Last year, Jeremy and I found a nearby field and picked some by hand. This year we thought we'd try our hand at raking instead.

I found a farm about 50 minutes away that provides rakes. Raking is so much better than picking by hand.

In less than 30 minutes we almost completely filled our flat.

Next, we watched our berries and debris go through the cleaning machine. Last year we had to pick through our berries ourselves. This was so much easier.

First it blew out the grass and leaves, then the small berries were removed, lastly the smashed berries were carried off. This left us to weed out any stems that got through.

We ended up with 6 lbs of blueberries. We had blueberry pancakes for dinner the night we picked them - I'm also planning on making at least one pie and some muffins. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with the rest.

I'm glad we got to cross off another activity from our "Maine bucket list." While raking was much easier than picking, I don't think I'd want to do it all day, every day as rakers do during blueberry season.

Birthday Fun

2011-07-15T18:00:00.001-07:00

Jeremy's birthday was on Monday but we decided to celebrate on Saturday because Jeremy found a restaurant he wanted to try about an hour away in Rockport. Since neither of us had been to the Rockport/Camden area, we decided to make an evening of it.

Jeremy also decided that he should get his birthday cake early since he was leaving for Vienna on Wednesday. He was afraid that if he didn't get it until Monday, he wouldn't be able to eat much of it before he left. Therefore, he got it on Saturday. I had everything to make him a peanut butter and jelly cake and then he saw a giant whoopie pie cake at a grocery store and decided he wanted that instead.

It was pretty tasty.

For his birthday meal, Jeremy wanted shepherd's pie and found a restaurant in Rockport called Shepherd's Pie. How fitting. We split a cheese plate and I had the fried clam tacos and Jeremy the shepherd's pie. It was all delicious.

Down at the harbor we saw Andre the Seal. I used to read a story about Andre to a kid I worked with. We read the story a lot so I was a little excited to see the statue dedicated to him.

After eating we headed to Camden to walk around and do some people watching. It's a nice area with a beautiful harbor.

We both enjoyed Camden/Rockport and plan on going again sometime.

Camping

2011-07-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to go camping or backpacking for a while now. It seems like we always have something going on every weekend so we never get the chance. We finally decided that we would go backpacking the weekend of the Fourth of July since the weather was supposed to be nice and we didn't have anything going on. That plan quickly changed once we realized the church rummage sale was that weekend and we had already signed up to work at it. So instead of backpacking we went camping nearby and drove in on Saturday to work at the rummage sale. Perfect compromise.

I didn't have to work Friday so we went out around noon and made lunch at our campsite. Eating is one of my favorite things to do while camping. Everything just tastes so much better when cooked over a fire.

Lunch consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches, made in a pie iron, and salad, because we've recently started receiving our CSA box and are up to our ears in lettuce.

View from our campsite:

We spent most of the day Friday reading, napping, and relaxing. It was pretty great.

For dinner I made a pizza in the dutch oven. I was pretty pleased with how well it turned out.

Saturday we got up and ate breakfast before heading into town for the rummage sale. I had found a recipe online for a hashbrown/egg/onion dish made in a pie iron and decided I had to try it. We had some extra American cheese from our grilled cheese sandwiches so I threw some on at the end to melt it. So good. We'll definitely be making this again while camping.

Saturday we spent most of the day at the rummage sale, snacking on food there. We returned back to our campsite in the early afternoon and walked to a local ice cream place. We spent the rest of the time reading, napping, and relaxing again.

Dinner the second night was another dutch oven meal - pot pie. I cooked some chopped onions and carrots in the dutch oven, added peas and corn, a big can of cream of mushroom soup and heated that. Then I topped it with some cut up biscuits and cooked it until the biscuits were done. It was pretty good, especially since we were camping and everything is better when camping.

Sunset over the ocean:

Sunday we had the same thing for breakfast, packed up and went home. We skipped church because I didn't want to rush around to get home and ready on time. Plus the Wimbledon finals were on and I wanted to catch that.

Now I'm hoping for the stars to align so we can actually go backpacking.

Fun with Friends

2011-06-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

We had a fun-filled weekend this past weekend with three friends visiting - Chris and Meredith, friends of ours from college, and Eric, a friend of mine from high school. All of them were doing "east coast" trips, visiting friends and family and they ended up here in Maine at the same time.

Friday we spent the evening at home, grilling and just relaxing. Saturday we went down to Mt. Dessert Island for the day. We did a short hike, walked around Bar Harbor some, ate lunch, and drove through Acadia National Park. The weather mostly cooperated Saturday, but it was a little chilly, especially for our Texan friends.

The group on top of Beech Mountain

Saturday evening we ate lobstah, (some of us did, at least) and went candlepin bowling. Chris and Meredith had to leave at midnight on Saturday/Sunday to make it to Portland for their 5:40am flight so we said good bye to them.

Sunday the weather was pretty miserable - low 50's and rainy. We drove around on MDI some more, ate lunch, went on a tour at the local brewery (they have blueberry beer!), ate whoopie pies, and went to Schoodic Point to see the tide come in. The tide makes huge splashes as it comes in and is fun to watch. If it wasn't so cold, I could have sat there for hours watching it. We spent the evening on Sunday playing Settlers of Catan and talking.

Eric left early Monday morning and now we're back in work mode. We miss our friends and hope they can either come visit us again or we can get to where they are!

Life

2011-06-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot has been going on around here lately. Jeremy and I went to Massachusetts this past weekend for our church's Synod Assembly. This is when, every year, each church in the Synod (in our case 6 New England States) send delegates to vote on the next year's budget and other things relating to the Synod. I wasn't a voting delegate but Jeremy was. It was our first Synod Assembly and I enjoyed learning what all happens at them. It was also great to meet other Lutherans from our area and get to know them some.

We are now getting ready to have friends visit this weekend - Chris and Meredith from Texas and Eric from Wisconsin. They are our first visitors so we're excited to show them around the area and eat some lobstah with them.

My work weeks have been short lately due to, well, not having much work. The upside to this is that I can sometimes schedule my week so that I have Fridays off! I just hope I don't get to used to it before work picks back up.

My computer has been on the fritz lately so I bit the bullet and bought a new one. I figured I should before the other one completely dies and I lose everything on it. I need a computer for work so going without one is not an option and I can't use Jeremy's for my work since his is not really his, but his work's. Also, I wanted to buy a new computer while Microsoft still had their buy-a-laptop-get-a-free-xbox360 deal going on. So now we have an xbox 360 but no games for it. We're hoping to get a kinect eventually, possibly as a birthday present for Jeremy next month.

In the past two weeks or so we've gotten a Droid phone, ipod touch, laptop, and xbox 360 but have only paid for the laptop (Jeremy's side job paid for the phone and ipod touch since he's programming mobile apps). Pretty sweet. Needless to say, we're totally geeked out over all these new toys.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

2011-05-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

Last night, Jeremy was bored and wanting to do something. Now because we live in a small town, there really isn't much to do. Like nothing at all, at least when the weather isn't nice. So we did what we usually do when we're bored - we found a reason to go to Walmart (allergy medicine, because man has this spring been brutal.)

Upon our arrival at Walmart, we saw this:

Now we couldn't pass up a deal like that. At first we weren't sure what to do with the four pounds we were buying so I called my dad to find out how to make jam. He told me what I needed and Jeremy and I decided to make freezer jam since it sounded a lot easier. Plus we had everything we needed, once we grabbed some pectin.

So that's how we spent our Sunday evening - making freezer jam. We used the recipe from the box, which can be found here. It was pretty easy and turned out really well. We are pleased and will be making it again sometime, maybe with a different type of fruit.

It's even better when eaten on some homemade bread!

Recipe Swap - Eggplant Parmesan

2011-05-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

I recently became involved in an online cooking/food community. They do a recipe swap each week with some sort of theme. This week's theme was vegetarian so I knew I should finally participate. I was pretty happy to see the recipe I received - Eggplant Parmesan, from Jaire30 of Sweet Beginnings . It's been a while since I've made an eggplant dish so I was excited to try it!

Jeremy and I both really enjoyed this dish. Jeremy thought that the eggplant was the perfect thickness and I have to agree with him. I also liked that the eggplant was baked instead of fried. It reheated well the next day so it made a great lunch. This will definitely go into our rotation of meals!

Eggplant Parmesan:

Ingredients

1 eggplant
3 egg whites
3 tablespoons water
1 cup fine dry breadcrumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, (1 ounce), divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 cups Tomato-basil pasta sauce
3/4 cup grated part-skim mozzarella cheese, (3 ounces)

Preparation

Heat oven to 400°F. Coat baking sheet and an 8-by-11 1/2-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Peel Eggplant and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Whisk egg whites and water in a shallow dish until frothy. Combine breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, salt and pepper in another shallow dish. Dip the eggplant slices into the egg-white mixture, then coat with the breadcrumb mixture.
Arrange the eggplant slices in a single layer on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, turn the eggplant slices over, and bake until crisp and golden, about 15 minutes longer.
Spread about 1/2 cup of the sauce in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Arrange half of the eggplant slices over the sauce, overlapping slightly. Spoon 1 cup of the remaining sauce over the eggplant and sprinkle with half of the mozzarella cheese. Add a layer of the remaining eggplant slices and top with the remaining sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan. Bake, uncovered, until the sauce bubbles and the top is golden, 15 to 20 minutes.

Avocado Ice Cream

2011-05-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of avocados. When I lived in Texas during college, I ate a ton. Of course, they were ridiculously cheap there, especially when they were in season. Once I moved out of Texas, my avocado consumption dropped drastically since they were roughly four times the price. Now they are more of a treat than a normal, every day food.

Earlier this week I ran across a recipe for avocado ice cream. At first I thought it sounded weird, but as I read the description I decided I had to try it so I made some today. The recipe is at Two Peas and Their Pod. Instead of one cup of sour cream I used a mixture of sour cream and low fat plain yogurt because I didn't have a full cup of sour cream. Other than that, I followed the recipe.

I was not disappointed by this - it was deliciously creamy and avocado-y with a hint of lime. Plus it's green! If you like avocados, chances are, you will like this ice cream.

Good Friday Hike

2011-04-27T10:22:00.001-07:00

Last Friday Jeremy and I went for our annual Good Friday hike. In Tennessee, the university gave us the day off as "Spring Recess" and we usually went hiking with some people from our church that day. We decided to continue the traditional hike this year and I took the day off from work.

This year we hiked Cadillac mountain, which is on Mount Desert Island, not too far from us. It is the highest point along the North Atlantic seaboard. We've been to the top before, but got there by car. There is a road that goes all the way to the top. When we drove it last summer, I remember seeing hikers along the way and thinking "Oh, they don't look like they're having too much fun! I'm glad I'm in the car." Truthfully, the hike wasn't too bad and it was a nice day for it - in the 50's and sunny.

We did the North Ridge Trail, which is about 4.4 miles round trip. I was expecting it to be a lot steeper - I guess after hiking in the Smokies my expectation of mountain hikes are skewed. Since it was early in the season not too many other people were out. Come summer I expect the trail will be packed with tourists.

Us at the top. It was pretty breezy up there, out of the trees.

View from the top.

Beer Suppah

2011-04-09T11:16:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday Jeremy and I had the opportunity to go to a beer dinner at a local restaurant, Cleonice. We had never been to a beer dinner before. I was excited, Jeremy was a little hesitant because he's kind of a picky beer drinker. He doesn't like dark or flavorful beers. I somehow convinced him that this would be fun.

We got to taste 8 different beers over the course of the dinner. There were four courses, each paired with an "old world" beer and a "new world" beer.

The "new world" first course was buffalo jerky and a deviled egg paired with a Weyerbacher Merry Monks Tripel. The "old world" pairing was duckfat crispy fries and a Belgian finger sandwich with Koningshoven La Trappe Tripel.

I had never had a Tripel before and was quite pleased. The Weyerbacher had a light, bold flavor and was almost fruity tasting. The spices, clove and coriander, came through nicely. The Koningshoven was less sweet and seemed like it had more carbonation. Overall, Jeremy and I liked the Weyerbacher better but thought that the Koningshoven paired better with its food.

The second course consisted of Texas red pork chili with hominy and was paired with a Weyerbacher Fireside Ale for the "new world" and smoked shoulder with cabbage paired with a Marzen Rauschbier for the "old world."

The Weyerbacher Fireside had a nice smoky smell and a somewhat smoky aftertaste. It was light, yet hearty. The Marzen Rauschbier had a smokier taste and smell and wasn't as hearty. Both Jeremy and I liked the Weyerbacher better.

The third course was a slider of Blue Hill Blondes beef paired with a Weyerbacher Heresy Stout for the "new world" and Cheddar and Whisky Rarebit paired with a Harveistoun Ola Dubh for the "old world".

Honestly, by this time I couldn't really tell any difference between the beers. I wrote that they were both "flavorful and stout-like" on my sheet. Jeremy liked the Weyerbacher better; I couldn't taste a difference.

The last course was dessert. We were served a piece of spicy gingerbread made with stout paired with a Manly Men Blackstrapped Molasses barleywine for the "new world" and Pears with Stout Creme Anglais paired with a Brauerel Hofstetten barleywine for the "old world".

These barleywines were very different tasting so I could tell a difference. The Manly Man selection was very molasses-y and tasted kind of like gingerbread. The Brauerel Hofstetten was more bittter and lighter. Jeremy liked that one better but I preferred the Manly Man barleywine.

The beer supper was a lot of fun and we got the opportunity to try some beers we never would have before. Jeremy even found out that he likes more beers than he thought. This is something we'd definitely do again. Although, next time I won't finish all my beers - it was a bit much for me.

My Spice Rack

2011-04-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

Jeremy made me a spice rack a couple years ago and I must say, I love it! Before, all my spices were thrown in a cabinet and I'd have to sort through all of them just to find the cumin. Now they're all right there - in plain sight! They're not very organized right now, but it still takes me much less time to find something now than before.

It's the little things in life that make me happy.

The Maine Accent

2011-04-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

We've lived in Maine for 10 months now, which is weird to think we've been here this long. Time has flown by. Over the past few months I have noticed something odd about the Maine accent. While people tend to take the "R" sound off of words so that "Mainer" is pronounced "Mainah" and "Bar Harbor" becomes "Bah Hahbah" they also add "R" sounds to words without them. I have noticed this mostly when people say "idea." It becomes "idear." This drives me crazy! The other day though, someone did this to my name. I definitely heard someone call me "Golder." AHHH!! That. Is. Not. My. Name!

Another peculiar thing I have noticed is that people add "the" to names of things such as roads and schools. The road near our house, which goes in the direction of the town of Bucksport, becomes "The Bucksport Road" (even though it has a proper road name, I can't even tell you what it is since no one calls it by it's real name). Likely, the road headed towards Surry is "The Surry Road." I think in Bucksport they refer to the same road as "The Ellsworth Road" since, well, it goes in the direction of Ellsworth, our town. This confuses me because sometimes I'll be driving on it, towards our house, and I don't know if I'm supposed to call it The Bucksport Road because that's what we call it or The Ellsworth Road because I'm headed towards Ellsworth.

People also call the old Elementary school here The Knowlton School. It would be like if I the elementary school I went to "The Lee School." Weird.

The NY Times

2011-03-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Golda and I'm a New York Times junkie.

Both semesters of my freshman year at Baylor I was required to buy a subscription to the NY Times for one of my classes. It was greatly discounted and we only received it Monday-Friday. Also, we had to walk to the bookstore every day to pick it up. Many of my classmates, including my roommate, did this halfheartedly. They might pick it up some days, forget other days, and they rarely read it, except for when we had to for class. Not me. I made sure to grab mine every day and I read it every day, much to the dismay of my roommate who hated the giant pile of newspapers this created in our room. She was convinced that cockroaches like newspapers and she was deathly afraid of cockroaches.

Since those long ago days in Alexander Hall, I have kept up with reading the NY Times every day, except now I do it online. You can imagine how upset I was when I read last week that they were going to start charging to read the paper online! Oh the horror! But wait, you can still read 20 articles a month for free. Twenty articles is nothing! I read much more than that a week! This didn't make me too happy.

For the past week I've been reading the NY Times like usual and not thinking about the end of the month, when I would no longer be able to do so. I just kind of pushed it out of my mind and figured I'd deal with it when it happened. Today I opened my email to find this:

Dear NYTimes.com reader,

As a frequent reader of NYTimes.com, you’ve demonstrated an uncommon interest in a wide variety of today’s most important topics. This makes you anything but average. In fact, it can’t help but make you “smarter” — just the kind of person we at Lincoln want to engage.

Though NYTimes.com will soon begin charging for unlimited access*, Lincoln is offering you a free digital subscription for the remainder of 2011. Enjoy all that NYTimes.com has to offer every day — investigative news and special reports, videos, blogs and more. It’s all yours at no charge, compliments of Lincoln.

I was pretty ecstatic when I read this. I can still feed my NY Times appetite! Well, at least for the rest of the year. When the end of December comes, I'll figure out something then.

Saltine Toffee Bars

2011-03-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Last week Jeremy and I were scrambling to come up with a dessert for our weekly game night at church. We forgot to buy anything at the store and had limited items at home in which to make something. Remembering a recipe I've seen around Christmastime, I decided to make saltine toffee bars, as all they require are saltine crackers, butter, brown sugar, and chocolate chips - all stuff that we had. Long story short, I ended up not making them last week because Jeremy decided to go to the store to buy stuff for a dessert he'd rather have - vanilla pudding with crushed oreos in it. It was a big hit.

This week I decided to make the faux toffee because I was pretty curious as to how it would turn out.

It's really simple. First, arrange saltines (about 1 sleeve) on a cookie sheet that has been lined with greased foil. Melt 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of brown sugar in a saucepan. Bring it to a full boil and let it boil without stirring for 3 minutes. Then pour it over over the saltines and spread it around. This then goes into a 400 F oven for about 5 minutes. When it comes out, it will look something like this:

Sprinkle 2 cups of chocolate chips over the crackers and let sit for another five minutes. They will then look shiny.

At this point you can spread the chocolate around.

The hardest part is waiting for the toffee and chocolate to cool and harden. I ended up putting mine in the fridge for about an hour. After it has set, break it into pieces and enjoy!

This ended up being super easy and super tasty. I will definitely be making it again sometime. The only downside is that I can only eat a little bit at a time because there is so much sugar in it. My body doesn't really like too much sugar at once.

2011-03-13T16:33:00.001-07:00

Things that are currently making me happy:

1. Being able to see the grass (in places)!
2. Temperatures in the 40s!
3. Seasonal businesses are starting to open!
4. The days are getting significantly longer!

I'm pretty excited for spring. I just hope winter doesn't have one more punch left in her.

Birthday Weekend

2011-02-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote about how when I was a kid I would always wish for it to snow on my birthday. I seriously take it all back. It snowed again this year on my birthday. But unlike last year in Tennessee when we just got a dusting, we got about a foot this year in Maine. Luckily I only had one client on Friday and my session was in the morning. The snow started about 10am and continued all day and into the night. It wasn't much fun to drive in.

All week I had been looking forward to going up to Bangor for my annual birthday sushi. This was to be the third year in a row I chose sushi for my birthday meal. I can't help it, I love sushi. Because of the weather, there was no way we could drive to Bangor for dinner. I was bummed, but then we remembered that there is a sushi place in our town - at the Thai restaurant. That became the new plan for dinner.

Because we weren't able to drive to Bangor, we were able to check out the beer tasting event at Global Beverage Warehouse here in town. It was the first time we've been to one here and it was fun. We tried five different beers, some better than others. Also, we found out that they do this every month! We are definitely going back for another one. It's a good way to try beers we wouldn't normally buy.

After the beer tasting (and a brief shopping trip to Wal-Mart) we headed to dinner. The sushi ended up being pretty decent, and much cheaper than all the sushi restaurants in Knoxville, always a plus. They also gave me free birthday ice cream! After dinner we were too full for cake so decided to put that off until Saturday. We went home and watched Inglorious Basterds. I'm proud to say that the movie was about 2.5 hours long and I didn't even fall asleep!

Saturday, after digging out our cars, I tried to buy a pair of Keen's for my birthday, but no where is carrying them yet. I figured that would probably happen. I pretty much just hung out at home all day. I like lazy Saturdays. Jeremy made my cake Saturday evening and we ate it then.

Sunday we hosted fellowship time at church, meaning we were in charge of bringing in food. I planned this so that we could bring the rest of my cake in since we can never eat an entire cake, just the two of us. After church I did a bunch of nothing at home while Jeremy worked some. Then we over to Cherryfield for the weekly "Down East Table of Plenty" community meal. We go to it usually about twice a month. It's a lot of fun. This week they group putting it on did a breakfast for dinner meal. Gotta love brinner. It was pretty tasty, especially the wild blueberry juice!

Overall the birthday weekend was fun and relaxing, just the way I like it. Not to excited to start another work week. Why do the weekends go by so quickly?

Waiting for Spring

2011-02-19T08:49:00.001-08:00

I'm over this whole "winter" thing - I want it to be spring. This winter hasn't really been too bad. It's often sunny and that helps a lot. I remember in da U.P. we wouldn't see the sun for months. That was awful. But I'm still ready for spring! We've been teased this week with some warmer weather and now I'm ready for it full time.

I've decided to make a list of things I'm excited for once it's actually spring:

1. Grilling. I miss it.
2. Not having to wear boots/not getting snow in my shoes.
3. Not having to wear a warm coat, mittens, and scarf all the time.
4. Camping!
5. Hiking!
6. The ice cream shops opening again!
7. Not slipping on the ice that is currently covering everyone's driveways.
8. Fresh spring veggies
9. Not having to cancel work sessions because I'm snowed in.
10. Our electric/propane bills going down.
11. Taking all the plastic stuff off our windows and being able to see out the windows again.
12. Being able to do outside activities with my clients that don't involve snow/being cold.
13. Not having to scrape/brush snow off my windshield all the time.
14. Riding on Jeremy's motorcycle.

I'm sure there are more, but that is all I can think of right now.

Things I'm NOT excited for:

1. MUD
2. Tourists

Tax Season!

2011-02-02T07:15:00.001-08:00

Jeremy is such a nerd. Every year, about the second week of January, he starts getting excited about doing our taxes. I mean he really gets excited. He'll even start "putting the numbers in" before all the tax info arrives just "to see what we can expect." It's pretty funny. Twice this past weekend I had to tell him it was time to put the tax stuff away and step away from the computer so we could go do something else, such as go to his work party.

I really like that he likes to do taxes because it means I don't have to worry about it. I don't hate doing taxes. In fact, I don't really mind it at all, but I certainly don't get the same type of enjoyment out of it he does so I'm happy to pass over all my W2's to him and let him go at it. We think he likes doing taxes so much because his mom is an accountant. Surely he must have gotten some of those genes. What else could explain it?

Savory Oatmeal

2011-01-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

I am not a sweet-breakfast-foods type of person. I prefer my breakfasts savory. Usually I eat some sort of egg dish in the morning, if I have time, consisting of eggs, salsa/hot sauce, and toast/tortillas. If I'm rushed in the morning, I'll eat some toast with butter.

Lately I've been eating a fair amount of oatmeal for breakfast since it's cheap and relatively fast. I can eat it 2-3 times a week, but I usually get tired of eating something sweet, since that is how most people eat oatmeal - they add sugar, maple syrup, fruit, etc. to it. I've been seeing recipes for savory oatmeal floating around the Internets for a while and decided to try it out today. After reading a few recipes I decided to wing it and try my own thing. It turned out pretty good, I must say.

Basically all I did was cook my oatmeal and add salt, pepper, and bacon fat to it once it was done. I then topped it with an egg. I know, I know, I'm a vegetarian, I'm not supposed to eat bacon fat. The truth is, sometimes I do eat meat, when I know where it came from. The farm we worked at for our CSA raised pigs and we bought some pork from them not too long ago. Jeremy saved the bacon fat and we've been using it in things on occasion.

I was so excited about eating this that I forgot I was planning on topping it with some Parmesan. Oops. Next time, I guess.

This is a good alternative to the normal, everyday, sweet oatmeal dishes out there. I'm excited to play around with other savory flavor combinations.

Mini Magazine Rant

2011-01-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I were recently gifted with a subscription to a Christian magazine. Now I'm sure the the person giving us this gift means well and probably enjoys the magazine. I thought I'd give it a chance and I read the first few editions. I quickly noticed a pattern, nearly all articles go something like this:

Wo is me, my life is in shambles.

But then, I read something/talked to someone/remembered something/heard something

And now life is great!

Seriously, almost every. single. article. follows this pattern. I now amuse myself by reading articles and looking for it to happen.

Another thing that annoys me about the articles is that they are all written in first person narrative. There is no journalism going on here, just "here is my story about how my life was in shambles but now it's great!" It gets a little repetitive after a while.

Lastly, the magazine is full of ads. These aren't just any ads, though. I'm used to seeing ads in other magazines for clothes, perfumes, kitchen stuff, etc. This magazine is full of "Look 20 years younger now, magically!" or "Work from home and make $50,000!" or "Take this 'all natural' supplement and all your health problems will be gone" ads. It just seems kind of wrong to have these ads, and so many of them, in a magazine of this sort.

Baby it's Cold Outside

2011-01-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

True Story. Saturday night Jeremy and I are on our way home from our weekly trip to Wal-Mart. Now normally we go Friday night, because there is nothing else to do around here on Friday nights. This week we went up to Bangor on Friday to go out to eat and to finally see Harry Potter 7. That meant our weekly date to Wal-Mart was pushed back a day. Anyway, we're headed home and I make the observation that Maine isn't as cold as I thought it would be. It's cold here, don't get me wrong, but compared to the Midwest, it's nothing. I not-so-fondly remember those prairie winds in Kansas in the winter. It was cold. Here it might dip down to the single digits at night, but during the day it's mostly been in the teens to 20's, maybe making its way up to the low 30's. Totally managable.

Fast forward to this morning. I woke up and checked the weather, as I knew I was going to be spending some time outside as all the kids I work with like to do things outside even when it's cold. I knew there was a pretty good chance I'd be taking a kid sledding today. It was 9 degrees, but felt like 6. Ouch. I made sure to bundle up and it's a good thing I did since we did go sledding. We didn't stay very long, since it was so cold.

So I guess Maine can be cold. I still don't think it compares to Kansas though. I mean, it was sunny here and there was no wind! That makes a huge difference.

Getting enough fruits and vegetables

2011-01-14T10:28:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid, I swear I could eat anything, anytime, and never suffer any repercussions. Now I'm an adult and if I go 2-3 days without eating enough fruits and vegetables and/or too much sugar I notice. I start to feel sluggish and gross. My body starts craving fresh fruits and vegetables. I don't know if I just didn't notice this happening as a kid or if it's more pronounced now. Probably a little of both, I'm guessing.

I have especially noticed this while traveling. It seems like whenever we go out of town I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables and after a few days I need them. This usually means that, if we're driving, I make Jeremy find a Panera or McAllister's on the way home so I can eat a salad. On occasion, Jeremy has even said he wants some vegetables. That's when I know it's really bad.

The past few weeks, mostly around Christmas, I have not been feeling great and I know it's related to my diet, which had consisted of way too much sugar. This week I finally decided to do something about it and bought a bunch of fruits and vegetables while grocery shopping, including a bag of kale. I've mainly been eating it in the morning with eggs and toast, but have also made a quesadilla with it.

I also made lentil sprouts this week, in an effort to eat better. I've been eating them with hummus on bread. And because I have no other hobbies, here are some pictures of my sprouts sprouting:

I'm always so amazed when they get their first little sprout buds.

A Tale of Two Haircuts

2011-01-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend both Jeremy and I got our haircut. We probably should have staggered it - I don't know how many people have asked us if we got a "two for one" special. (For the record, we did not.)

Jeremy hadn't cut his hair since before our wedding, about 2 1/2 years ago. At some point he decided that he wanted to grow out his hair, and since he's a grad student right now, it seemed like the time to do it. He finally got tired of it and had been talking about cutting it all of for a couple months now. He looks so different, yet this is how he used to look.

I've been needing a haircut of a while, I just never got around to it. My hair was the longest it had been since in college when I grew it out for Locks of Love. Since it was so long, I figured I might as well cut it all off again and donate it. I ended up getting about 12 inches off.

In the middle of my hair cut, the lady cutting my hair started asking the lady cutting Jeremy's hair how to cut my hair. I will admit, I was a little nervous at this point. Luckily, the lady doing Jeremy's hair decided to show her how to do it, which made me feel better. It was a bit weird to be turned into a teaching prop, though.

Such drastic haircuts in January probably wasn't the best idea - our necks are cold!

My Toaster Oven

2011-01-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

As you may remember, last month I was trying to decide between getting a toaster oven or a stand mixer. I ultimately went for the toaster oven and received the mother of all toaster ovens, the Breville Smart Oven, for Christmas. So far I'm really enjoying it. I've made toast, pizza, nachos, roasted sweet potatoes, apple raisin quick bread, and have reheated numerous things in it. Pizza is so much better reheated in a toaster oven than in the microwave.

Speaking of microwaves, we've put ours in storage for the time being. As we don't have that much counter space we decided to swap out the microwave for the toaster oven, since it can do so much more. If we find we just can't live without a microwave, we'll have to bring it back and figure out where to put it. So far I'm not missing it too much. Sure it takes longer to reheat stuff in the toaster oven, but the results are usually better. We also had to buy an egg timer since we always used the timer on the microwave for everything. Also, I'm getting accustomed to melting butter on the stove now. Other than that, I can't think of what else we'd really need the microwave for.

I'm excited to use my toaster oven for more things, like a small batch of cookies. Sometimes Jeremy and I like to make two cookies at a time for an after dinner treat. Since we're still eating all of our Christmas chocolate, we haven't had to do this in a while. It will also be nice in the summer when it's pushing 90 degrees inside and I don't want to turn on the oven to make dinner.

A New Adventure

2011-01-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

For 2011, I have decided to embark on a new pizza adventure. In 2010, I resolved to "eat more pizza." This year, I will make a new pizza every week all year and write about it. I have started a new blog for this, titled "The Weekly Pizza." Check it out!

Christmas Recap

2010-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I had a nice, relaxing Christmas this year as we stayed at home and didn't have to worry about traveling. It started Friday night with our Christmas Eve dinner. My family always had our "big" Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, as is the Ukrainian tradition. We don't follow all of those traditions listed in the link, but we always eat fish for the meal and no meat. The fish and the meal change every year - this year Jeremy and I had tuna steaks, pierogies, steamed asparagus, and ginger glazed carrots. I was happy to find the pierogies at the store - I didn't really want to go through all the work of making them for just the two of us.

After dinner we played dominoes until it was time to get ready for church. We went to the candle light service and Jeremy was the assistant minister. He was nervous since he's never done it before, but did a good job. (He also got to acolyte, another first!)

We came home and eventually went to bed. Since it was a late night, we slept in on Christmas day. When we finally woke up we opened presents and then lounged around until it was time to go to our friends' house for dinner. A couple from church invited us over and we had a good time getting to know them better. A third couple was supposed to come too but ended up not being able to make it. After the dinner we came home and played dominoes.

Our church was in charge of a free, weekly, community meal in a nearby town on Sunday so after church we headed up there to help. We knew that since it was the day after Christmas there probably wouldn't be that many people attending, but we still had fun and met some new people. After a group of us played dominoes (sensing a pattern? It's our latest addiction and it's more fun with more than two people).

After the dinner we headed home and prepared for the incoming "blizzard." We really didn't end up with too much snow, but it was relaxing to spend the day at home Monday because "we couldn't go out in the snow."

Our First Nor'easter

2010-12-27T07:33:00.001-08:00

Jeremy and I are currently snowed in, kinda.

The "blizzard" started last night and is expected to last through today. We're expecting, so I've heard, anywhere from 6 to 14 inches of snow with winds up to 35-55 mph.

Work emailed, and then called, at 9pm last night to tell me not to work today. They don't want us out driving, and since almost everyone has to travel to get to clients' houses, it means we can't work.

Fine by me. I'll sit at home and enjoy another day of vacation!

University Towns

2010-12-22T07:34:00.001-08:00

I never realized how fortunate I was to be affiliated with a university for the past 8 years. I think I took it for granted. Now that I'm not going to or working for a university I realize all the great perks I had. The biggest perk that I took for granted was being able to use a state-of-the-art gym for free (as a student) or for a nominal fee (as staff). I didn't always take advantage of that, but man it was nice to have it there was an option. Baylor had a great indoor pool that I occasionally used. I don't have that available anymore. UT had free classes at the gym. I used to do yoga once or twice a week and I really enjoyed that. Now, nada. I take that back. I do actually have access to the gym at the lab where Jeremy works, but it's 35-45 minutes away so I don't think it's worth it to drive all that way to work out.

Also, I miss have access to cheap, smoke-free, entertainment. The University Center at UT charged $.06/minute for pool and also had good rates on bowling. It was great. Jeremy and I frequently went there to play pool on the weekends when we had nothing better to do. It was also a great place to people watch because undergrads are funny, especially when they're on awkward first dates. Not only did they have cheap pool and bowling, but there was a big screen TV with cable! Since we didn't have cable most of the time we lived in Knoxville, we sometimes went to the UC to watch Baylor games.

In addition, universities always have a wide variety of shows, concerts, plays, lectures, games, etc. Not that we necessarily went to a lot of those, but we did occasionally and it was nice to know we had the option.

Man, I miss living in a university town.

Wreaths

2010-12-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

After learning all about wreaths, Jeremy was planning on making one. He even bought a ring and some decorations for it. Then he came home from church with this one:

Our church decorates and sells wreaths every year as a fundraiser for different non-profits and charities in the area. It's pretty fun - everyone stays after church a couple Sundays and we have a potluck before we get to work. I was a "ribbon fluffer" and Jeremy trimmed the wreaths and "supervised" a small child who helped trim. Someone in the area made the actual wreath part. Wreaths are big business up here - people sell them out of their homes even.

So, if you want an authentic Maine wreath for your door next year, let us know! Ours are MUCH cheaper than LL Bean's and we'll ship them to you!

Pretzel Hugs

2010-12-13T08:09:00.000-08:00

I love sweet and salty food combinations including, but not limited to, Payday candy bars, salted caramels, and chocolate covered pretzels, which is why I love these fun little Christmas snacks. I'm not sure what their official name is, but pretzel hugs sounds good to me.

I first made these last year for an event at church. I was wanting to make them again this year, but needed a reason. There is no way Jeremy and I can, or should, eat all of them! Finally, I had a reason - we were having a luncheon of sorts after church yesterday. Perfect!

They're really easy to make. Line up pretzel waffles (or pretzel rounds if you can find them) on a cookie sheet, lined with wax paper. While you're doing that, get your husband (or someone else) to unwrap all the hugs and set those on top of the pretzels.

Cook at about 275 for 2-3 minutes. These were in for 3 minutes, but probably should have come up a bit earlier.

Place an m&m on top and smash down. Put in the fridge to cool and harden. Eat and enjoy.

(Note, I didn't line my cookie sheet with wax paper and it was hard to get them off. Once I found my pastry scraper it was a lot easier, but I'd recommend using the wax paper for less headaches.)

Homemade Eggnog

2010-12-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I love this time of year is simply put, eggnog. The only problem is that Golda will never let me buy any. This is probably good, cause I'd drink gallons of it and have a heart attack before Christmas. So, what's a guy to do? Easy - make it myself!

Recipes are pretty easy to find, I used one in Golda's copy of Joy of Cooking that actually cooks the eggs. I also swapped in less heavy cream and 2% milk to try to make it a little bit healthier. Topped it off with some Captain Morgan and a little nutmeg, and I'm in heaven.

Merry Christmas!

New Year's Resolutions Revisited

2010-12-06T09:14:00.001-08:00

I made two Resolutions for 2010:

1) Make a new recipe every week
2) Eat more pizza

I stopped keeping track of the first one in about March-April, but I still tried to cook something new every week. I didn't accomplish this always, especially with moving half way through the year, but I did find some new recipes I really enjoy and have now worked into our meal rotation.

The pizza resolution, I must say, was my best resolution ever. I enjoyed trying to keep this all year. I've had some memorable pizzas this year.

Best New Homemade Pizza:
Beet Pizza

Worst New Homemade Pizza:
Scallop Pizza

Most Unique New Homemade Pizza:
(Tie) Jambalaya Pizza (My half only had shrimp)
(Tie) Breakfast Pizza with Pesto Sauce, Scrambled Eggs, and Monterey Jack Cheese

Most Commonly Made Homemade Pizza (non-CSA box):
BBQ Pizza with Assorted Veggies

Most Commonly Made Homemade Pizza (CSA box):
Pesto Pizza with Assorted Veggies (We got a TON of basil every week)

Best New Pizza Joint We Visited (Knoxville):
Hard Knox Pizza, hands down. So sad we can't eat there anymore!

Best New Pizza Joint We Visited (Ellsworth):
(Tie) Finelli's (NY Style)
(Tie) Charlie's (Greasy, Comforting, and Cheap)

Saddest Pizza
(Tie) Goodbye Hard Knox pizza with Mary Beth and Steve
(Tie) Last pizza from Red Onion in our house in Knoxville the night before we left, eaten on the floor because everything was packed

Most Exciting Pizza:
Hard Knox Buffalo Chicken Pizza (minus the chicken) while watching my Baylor Bears in the NCAA basketball tournament. Delicious, plus we won!

Best Date Night Pizza:
Pizza from Orono House of Pizza while listening to the Baylor Bears beat K-State to become bowl eligible for the first time in 14 years. Eaten in Jeremy's office on campus, followed by a UMaine v. North Dakota Hockey game.

I still have about three weeks left of the year to get some more pizza in. All I have on my schedule is the Pizza Hut lunch buffet and at least one more homemade pizza. The lunch buffet takes me back every time. It reminds me of when my dad would take us to Pizza Hut for lunch when we didn't have school in middle/high school.

Decision Matrices

2010-12-04T17:04:00.000-08:00

For a while now I've been trying to decide between getting a toaster oven or a stand mixer. I've been going back and forth on this. Finally, I put it up on facebook and got a bunch of responses from people who were either pro-toaster oven or pro-stand mixer. It was pretty entertaining actually. I still wasn't able to decide after asking my friends since people were about evenly divided on the subject. I figured it was time to make a decision matrix.

Decision matrices are awesome. I first learned about them in my econ class in high school. Basically, they are a chart that helps you make a decision between two or more options. I talked about them in a couple of my undergrad classes as a method for making decisions. No one knew what I was talking about but my Econ professor got REALLY excited and asked me all about them. I think everyone else just thought I was a nerd. I don't care, they're very useful.

Here is my decision matrix about toaster ovens and stand mixers:

	Amount I'll Use It	Time Saved	Electricity Saved	Versatility	Storage Space	Taste of Results	Total
Toaster Oven	2	2	2	1	1	2	10
Stand Mixer	1	1	1	2	2	1	8

You put your choices on one side and all the factors on the other, basically, then decide which option "wins" that category. Add up the numbers to get the total and you have what your decision should be. Here, I have decided that I should get the toaster oven. I didn't add some other important factors like "ability to cook pizza" or "ability to cook two cookies at a time" but I thought about it.

Thanksgiving and more

2010-11-30T10:53:00.001-08:00

After a week+ of misery, I'm finally feeling better. I kept feeling somewhat better last week, but then I'd feel horribly again.

Because of all this, Jeremy and I decided to keep Thanksgiving low key and just do a few side dishes and one dessert.

Here's as picture of most of the food:

That's green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, Jeremy's famous sweet potato souffle, dressing, and a roll. I guess we didn't get a picture of the pumpkin pie cheesecake.

I wasn't feeling particularly well that day, but managed to make my assigned dishes. As I was kneading the dough for the rolls I got really tired and exhausted. That's when I knew I was still pretty sick. We got through dinner and as I was laying on the couch that night I knew I wasn't going to be able to work the next day as was planned. I hate taking sick days. I managed to never take one in the three and a half years I worked at the University of Tennessee. Then again, I was never really sick then so that helped. It was a good thing I didn't try to work Friday - I was miserable! I laid on the couch all day watching Gilmore Girls and movies on TV. I also had a low fever. Luckily, when I woke up Saturday I was feeling much better - good enough to even leave the house! Since then I've been feeling progressively better. Now all I have is a cough, other than that I'm basically fine.

Jeremy has managed to not be sick this entire time. I don't know how he does it. My guess is that he was still in California when I was most contagious. I'm glad he didn't get sick - who would have gone to the store to get me Nyquil, and Tussin, and Vicks VapoRub, and most importantly, chocolate?

Blah

2010-11-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

Not much has been going on around here recently. Jeremy left for California for a week and I did a whole lot of nothing. Then he came back and I immediately came down with the Cold That Won't Go Away so I've been doing a whole lot of nothing. I used to never get sick, then I started working with kids. Ugh. I thought I was so great when I managed to miss the first round of illness in mid-September. Then I got the flu toward the end of October and now this cold. To be fair, I don't think I got the flu from my kids since Jeremy came down with it first. I'm totally blaming them for this cold though, seeing how almost ALL of my clients have been sick in the past two weeks.

Yesterday I was feeling a lot better so I went to work. Turns out talking to kids for 7.5 hours will do a number on your already somewhat sore throat. I could barely talk by the time I got home. I didn't feel well today and was contemplating taking a sick day when I found out I couldn't see my only client anyways today because of some paperwork that needs finalized. A nice relaxing day has been pretty nice.

The other night I was watching Highlander with Jeremy. I wasn't really watching, but in the room. He's been watching the entire series on Netflix lately. At some point I decided to go to bed. I took some Nyquil and settled down with Eclipse, which I will admit I borrowed from my supervisor. She got the whole "not-wanting-to-get-it-from-the-library-cuz-I'm-too embarrassed" thing and gladly loaned me hers when I was up in Bangor last week. Anyways, the combination of Highlander, Eclipse, and Nyquil led to a very strange dream about vampires and immortal-headslaying children duking it out.

I no longer mix my sci-fi before bed.

Quite Alarming

2010-11-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

It turns out that even when Jeremy isn't here, he can manage to wake me up in the morning with his alarm.

Neither Jeremy nor I are morning people. And that's an understatement. When we lived in Knoxville, I had to get up earlier than him most mornings. That has all changed and he usually has to get up before me now. He is also a snoozer. It drives me CRAZY to hear his alarm go off three times in the 6:00 hour. And I make sure he knows this. He has gotten to the point where it only goes off twice now, usually. Although some of those times he thinks it only goes off once since he is still asleep when he hits snooze. Oh, and have I mentioned how loud his alarm is? It's very loud. I don't know how it doesn't wake him up sometimes. My alarm starts out very quietly and progressively gets louder - Jeremy doesn't even hear it usually when I do have to wake up before him.

So all that to say, Jeremy's alarm drives me crazy. He left Thursday morning for a conference in San Diego. Wednesday, in order to pack, he had to get his luggage out of the storage space in our room. Somehow, while he was in there, he must have bumped something because Friday morning at 8am I woke up to a beeping noise (I had to get up and leave early Thursday also so I didn't hear the beeping then). It took me a while to locate where the beeping was coming from, and by the time I realized it was in our storage space it had stopped. I contemplated getting up then but decided to go back to bed for 30 minutes or so. Ten minutes later the beeping started again! Since I knew it would eventually stop, I stayed in bed and covered my ears.

I told Jeremy about this when I talked to him on the phone later that day but he didn't know what it was. It happened again Saturday, and again I wasn't amused. I told him again about it Saturday, this time mimicking the noise, and he realized that it was his old alarm clock, which was in a bin in the storage space. Sure enough, I climb into the storage space (no easy feat) and find the offending clock. My morning was much better today without an extra alarm to wake me.

When in Maine, eat seafood.

2010-11-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Jeremy has really embraced seafood since moving to Maine. He liked it before, but now he's trying out all these new recipes since we have so much fresh, cheap, seafood at our fingertips. You may remember the lobster rolls we made earlier in the fall, all his idea.

Then about a month of so ago he decided he wanted to make some haddock chowder for dinner one night while I was working. It was excellent.

About two weeks ago he saw mussels on sale and couldn't resist. Here they are (don't mind the ugly pot):

Neither of us had ever eaten mussels before. They were pretty good, but both agreed that we probably won't be eating them often.

I fully support Jeremy's quest in new seafood adventures because it means I get a break from cooking dinner every once in a while. (Although I do enjoy cooking, it's nice to have a night off sometimes, plus Jeremy enjoys getting the night off from washing dishes if he cooks!)

Saying Goodbye

2010-11-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I found out this weekend that a dear friend of ours from Knoxville passed away. It wasn't a total surprise - he was 90 and we knew that he was in the hospital, but it still hurts. Gerhard was one of those people who you thought would live forever.

Since moving to Maine a few months ago, Jeremy and I will go over all the people in Knoxville we miss. Gerhard and his wife were always near the top of that list. They went to our church and we were fortunate enough to get to know them in the four years we lived there. They were both very active in everything. They were both on the Social Ministry and Outreach commission at church with me. Both delivered meals for Mobile Meals regularly. In fact, a couple of years ago there was an article in the paper about Gerhard's involvement. Some of the people they delivered to were younger than him! They also did all the recycling for our church and Gerhard was a big supporter of an organization I was in called Knoxville Interfaith Network. He was very concerned with the hungry around him and according to others, he's the reason why our church first became involved in Bread for the World. Basically, Gerhard did a lot.

He was such an inspiration to both of us. I don't know how many times Jeremy and I have said that we'd like to be like him and his wife when we're older. They were so active! A couple of years ago Gerhard hurt his knee and was on crutches. A few weeks later he was walking again just fine. I was surprised at how fast he bounced back. Not long after that, he and his wife were vacationing in Panama.

Gerhard also always had a smile on his face and a good word to say. Jeremy and I were in a supper club at church with him and his wife and a couple other couples last year. When it was his turn to host, he showed us all his beautiful gardens and the new trees he planted. I was again amazed at how active he was and all the work he could do. I hope I'm like that when I'm 89! He also told us some pretty funny stories during supper club. I won't repeat them here, but trust me, they're a riot.

So it's with sad hearts we say goodbye to Gerhard, even if we can't be there Wednesday for his memorial service. When we got the news of his passing, we paused for a moment, but then we started telling stories about him and our time with him. Things that reminded us of him. He definitely lived a full life worth remembering.

The Weekend

2010-10-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I had a fairly busy weekend. Baylor was playing it's homecoming game against K-State Saturday at 3:30. If they won, they'd be bowl eligible. We also had tickets to the UMaine - North Dakota hockey game up in Orono (about an hour away) for 7pm. We decided that we'd go up to Jeremy's office on campus to listen to the football game (since it wasn't being televised) and then walk over to the hockey game after that.

Jeremy decided that since we were headed up to Orono that day, we should stop by Bangor and do some shopping. He was wanting/needing some dress pants and found a coupon for Express online. Since an Express just opened at the Bangor mall (45 minutes away and the nearest place to us to buy things like pants - living in a small town can be rough sometimes), we decided to head up there before listening to the football game. Turns out Express was having some crazy sales. Jeremy ended up buying two pairs of nice pants and I got a pair of earrings - a $140 value and we paid $53!

We ended up only being able to listen to the first half of the football game since lightning delayed it for almost two hours. We had a healthy 10 point lead at the half so I wasn't too worried about losing (a few years ago I would have been - the Baylor team of yore would have found a way to lose, but not this year's team!). We went to the hockey game and I called my dad at intermissions to get updates on the score. He's a K-State fan so he wasn't too thrilled that they lost.

The hockey game was packed! If it wasn't sold out, it was close. It was fun and UMaine won 4-2, beating #2 North Dakota. Here is us after the game - Jeremy thought ahead to wear UMaine colors while I'm sporting my Baylor gear (that you can't see):

We got back pretty late Saturday night so I had to get up early Sunday morning to make an apple-raisin bread for church. It was "blue jean Sunday" at church this week - that is, everyone wears their blue jeans to church and stays after for lunch and to do the fall cleaning.

The weekend definitely went by too fast. Why oh why aren't they longer?

Working at the Food Pantry

2010-10-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

October is our church's month to help run the local food pantry. I've gone twice now to volunteer. Mostly I just help people pick out their food and help stock shelves. Spending time there has made me think how blessed Jeremy and I are - we can afford to buy food and buy what we want, for the most part. Now we aren't eating high price items a lot, but we can choose what we want to eat and how we want to eat. It must be really hard if you have to follow a special diet yet are relying on food pantries to help feed yourself or family. While there are some sugar free and gluten free options at the pantry, most of the foods aren't either. Also, there is a lot of meat given to the families, which I'm sure they enjoy. I, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to take a lot of the food given since I don't eat meat (except fish). I am so lucky that I can choose to follow this semi-vegetarian diet and have the means to do so.

I was pleased to see all the fresh fruits and vegetables at the pantry. Some local grocery stores and farmers donate some of their bruised or almost-too-old to sell items. Also, the families can take "as much as they can use" of these items! I thought this was awesome, because too often the foods donated to pantries are overly sugary/fatty/full of sodium. Some of the people bypassed the table completely, but I was pleased to see so many people taking advantage of the fresh fruits and vegetables by loading up and talking about what they were going to make with the giant zucchinis/tomatoes/etc.

The pantry also receives day old desserts such as cakes, pastries, pies, etc. I have found this is completely typical from the work I've done at other pantries and homeless shelters. In Waco, we were always getting tons of cake, but little in the way of nutritious foods. I'm glad there is a nice balance here. Both times I've been at the pantry here there have been some lemon meringue pies. I was surprised to see them go towards the end of the day. I LOVE lemon meringue - I'd totally pick that over cake or pastries any day.

Yet Another Pizza

2010-10-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

In my never ending quest to eat new pizzas, I made yet another new one this week. Jeremy brought home a bunch of red peppers from the farm we work at last week and I couldn't decide what I was going to do with them. Yesterday, we were having pizza for dinner and we didn't have enough basil pesto for both pizzas. Suddenly it came to me - I'd roast the peppers and make a red pepper pesto for one pizza.

I was afraid the red pepper taste would be overwhelming, but it isn't. Since I roasted the peppers first, it is a pretty mild taste. I used almonds instead of pine nuts in the pesto since that is what I had. I should have used less olive oil - I forgot that peppers have more water in them than basil so they need less oil. Oh well. I topped it with some mozzarella and I must say it turned out pretty good. Jeremy says it's "okay" but he'd prefer a bbq, tomato sauce, or pesto pizza. Then again, he's not a big red pepper fan. He did eat some though.

Maine's Fall Colors

2010-10-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

Summer is basically over now in Maine. I've actually had to wear a coat every day for a while now. One of the best things about summer being over is it means that Fall is here - which means that the leaves are changing everywhere. I cover a good swath of the area, driving between Bangor and Bar Harbor, so I've really gotten to see a lot of them. Last weekend Golda and I finally got around to driving around and taking some pictures.

The University of Maine in Orono has a pretty campus right now. Here's a few shots of the library:

And here's another building nearby that I forget the name to:

Part of the south Bangor waterfront (not really a lot of color, but I thought it was pretty):

And finally back closer to home in Bucksport:

And then a few final photos in a random cemetery in Bucksport (apparently I'm supposed to mention this is my mother-in-laws favorite place). I think it'd pretty awesome to see 4-5 generations of a family all in one place, but I'm sure this is going the way of the buffalo nowadays since it isn't as common to stay close to home now.

Wanna come visit yet?

Registered and Ready to Go

2010-10-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

It only took a few weeks and way too much money, but my car is now fully registered and street legal in the state of Maine. This is the first state I've had a car in that requires a state inspection every year. While getting my car inspected they discovered I needed new struts on all four wheels. Sigh. They did say that everything else looked great, especially for the amount of miles on it. And the mechanics were impressed that there was no rust on the car. That's because the car has lived in Tennessee it's entire life, before moving here. There is no snow in Tennessee, which means no salt on the roads, which means no rust. Also, no oceans and no salt water in Tennessee. Yes, Tennessee is a good place to be a car. Besides all those mountains they must go up and down.

Speaking of struts, Jeremy found out that his new-to-him car needed a new strut (along with other things) this week as well. Luckily, since he's only had the car a month and a half, the dealership he got it at fixed everything for free. They said they should have caught it before they sold him the car. This was such great news to us.

This is also the first state in which I've had a car registered that requires a front plate. Which means I can no longer have my Yooper plate on the front.

This is a sad day indeed. My sister Betsy gave me this plate for Christmas in college and it adorned my Trooper and then my Accord in both Texas and Tennessee. Alas, I've had to take it down. In it's place is a standard Maine Chickadee plate,

as I didn't opt for one of the fancy lobster plates.

Maybe I should have.

Fall Food

2010-10-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

Fall foods are my favorite seasonal foods. If cherries were ripe in the fall, it would be perfect since I also love cherry season. Last year I discovered how much I love acorn squash and made it frequently so I was excited to see our first acorn squash of the season in our CSA box this past week. I baked it for dinner tonight with a bit of butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup. Divine. I also have planned our first pumpkin dish of the season for this upcoming week - pumpkin soup. I love soup and I love pumpkin so it's great.

Today I needed to use up the rest of the zucchini we got in our box this week. It seems like it will never end and Jeremy and I are both getting a little tired of eating it. I decided to make some zucchini bread out of it, but we didn't have quite enough so I added in some grated honey crisp apple. Another reason to love fall - honey crisp apples are on sale. These have been my favorite since I first tasted them two years ago.

The bread tastes pretty good, but the texture is a little weird - moist and almost spongy. I think I should have either squeezed out some of the moisture from the apple or maybe added a bit more flour. I'll have to play around with it and see what I can do. At least it tastes fine.

The New Red, White, and Green Pizza

2010-09-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I eat a lot of pizza. I usually make it at least once every two weeks. It's a great way to use up odds and ends of vegetables we have in the fridge. Earlier this summer I was making a pizza with a pesto sauce when I saw some baby beets from our CSA in the fridge. I sliced them real thin and threw them on the pizza, just to see how a beet pizza would taste. Turns out, it's delicious! We got some more beets in our box this week so I made another beet pizza. I also added the beet greens this time. I've done it before when we haven't had enough greens to really do anything else with them. They're pretty good on the pizza too.

Dinners

2010-09-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

Since school has started for the kids of Maine, my work schedule has shifted so that I mainly work in the afternoons and evenings now. I do in-home therapy and it's hard to do that when the kids aren't actually at home. Gone are the days of summer when they could meet anytime. It's kind of a pain working these hours because I don't get home until about 7:30-8ish most nights. Once I'm home, I'm hungry. I don't want to spend another hour making dinner. Enter the slow cooker. It has become a great friend of mine these past three weeks. At least once a week I've been making something in it so dinner's done by the time I get home and Jeremy and I can eat right away. Most of the meals have turned out decently thus far, but last night's veggie stew was a little lacking. I didn't follow a recipe - I just emptied the vegetable bins in the fridge and added some seasonings. I guess I didn't add enough seasonings because it was a bit bland. Live and learn. At least we used up most of the rest of last week's CSA veggies.

The upside to working mostly afternoons and evenings is that I have a lot of free time in the mornings which allows me to do most of my food prep then. This way, when I get home dinner is mostly ready - just has to be popped in the oven or heated up on the stove. Jeremy has also been a big help with heating up the food so it's ready when I get home.

I really don't see how people with school age kids can do this job. You're never home when they are! I also get why people eat out so often. If you don't like to cook and you get home at 8pm, it makes sense to just go through the drive thru I guess. Thankfully, I like to cook so I'm not going to resort to that. I hope.

Homemade Hand-picked Lobster Rolls and Ginger Ale

2010-09-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

We've lived in Maine for 3 and a half months, and realized the other day that we hadn't had a Lobster Roll since then. After realizing this, I also remembered seeing Lobster at the grocery store for only 5.99/lb. And they'll cook it for you for free. Need I say more...

So we bought two small Lobsters and had 'em cooked, and brought them home (along with some Maine-style frankfurter buns):

Now on to the hard part, we had to get all the meat out...

Most people would probably stop at this point, but we wanted to do it true Mainer style, so we dug into all the legs and body and got every last bit of meat out. The results were pretty gruesome:

Mix it up with a dollop of mayo and throw it in a bun and you've got a Lobster Roll. (Sorry for the fuzzy pic, Golda wouldn't let me take another one since she wanted to eat!).

Simply Delicious.

I also made my first batch of ginger ale this week. I found a really simple recipe which we basically already had everything for:

1 C sugar
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 inch of ginger, grated
2 T bread yeast (you might want less if you have better yeast/a warmer house - I got impatient)

Add it all to a 2-liter bottle and fill with lukewarm water. Make sure to leave some space at the top. Put the cap on and let it sit somewhere warm for a few days. Make sure to check it regularly to let the gas escape so it doesn't explode (or use a 2L growler like me =) -- if you're lucky enough to have one already). Once it's fizzy enough for you, put it in the fridge and most of the yeast will calm down.

It turned out so well that I might try to make my own root beer or cream soda next. Anyone else have ideas or recipes they use?

The Heat, Heat, Heat, is Hot, Hot, Hot

2010-09-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

It's been miserably hot here all week. Last week was so nice - in the mid to upper 70's every day. This week it's been in the 90's and muggy almost every day. Now I know that doesn't sound hot to all those in the south/mid west, but here, that's hot. It's bad, because if it's 90 outside, that means it's 90 inside too. No one has air conditioning, and if they do, it's just a window unit. Jeremy is a lucky punk, his work has a/c. Since my work is at clients' homes, there is no a/c, and part of my job is to play with kids. I spent all day yesterday (9am-6:30pm) working with kids who kept wanting to play, mostly outside. Needless to say I was exhausted by the time I got home.

Today we had our weekly staff meeting at work and we started it by all telling heat-related stories. One girl said she lives on the third floor of her building and it was 12 degrees hotter inside than it was outside the other night. Another guy said it was 102 inside a house he was working in. Ugh. No thank you. This is Maine - it's not supposed to be like this!

Luckily, the hurricane is headed our way. Everyone I've talked to is very happy about this. I have never met a group of people so excited about a hurricane. They're so happy only because the hurricane is bringing cooler weather with it. The high is 71 on Saturday!

Working from home (and food)

2010-08-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about being based out of my home (or car) for work is that I get to eat lunch at home usually. Sometimes there isn't enough time between clients so I have to grab something and eat it on the road, but when I get to eat at home, it's wonderful. I get to eat so many things that I wouldn't be able to pack in a lunch and eat elsewhere. Also, I never have to worry about packing my lunch the night before or that morning in a rush.

Today for lunch I had two poached eggs on a piece of toast, covered in salsa and a blueberry-banana smoothie. I'd never get to eat that anywhere but home for lunch.

There is a downside to this new job though - the hours, especially once school starts for the kids, keep me working late into the evening. This means that I'm going to have to get creative with dinners on those nights. I'm thinking we're going to be eating a lot of crockpot meals.

Living in Vacation Land

2010-08-25T05:25:00.000-07:00

Besides the increase in traffic, living in a tourist area can be really annoying. It kind of stinks when you're driving to work in the morning and you see all these cars and campers with kayaks and bicycles on them, driving towards Bar Harbor for a week of vacation fun.

I want to be on vacation and play all day! I don't want to go to work! Take me with you!

Camping and Kayaking

2010-08-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

We had a busy weekend this past weekend. So busy that I kept saying Sunday night that I needed a weekend to recover from my weekend. It actually wasn't too bad. We were able to go camping for the first time this summer and the weather couldn't have been better. We ended up at a state park, Cobscook Bay, about 1 1/2 hours from here. Unfortunately, by the time we reserved our site all the good sites on the bay were booked. We did have a "slight view" of the Bay though. Jeremy took this picture while standing on the bench of the picnic table.

You still can't really see the bay, but I promise it's there.

Saturday afternoon Jeremy tried his hand at mystery shopping, which meant we spent all afternoon running around so he could do it. He also had to upload everything by that night so we had to find some free wifi to do that. We then hurried back to our campsite so we could make dinner before dark. That didn't happen. We did have some good grilled pizza and reese's s'mores though.

Sunday morning we had to leave nice and early so we could get back in time for church. We would have just skipped, but we were becoming official members that day so we had to be there. Also, there was a church picnic later in the day. The picnic ended up being at a couple's house back in the direction of the state park so we were driving back and forth on Route 1 all day. At least it's a pretty drive.

Some new friends of ours invited us to their camp after the picnic to kayak. Their camp is on a lake, or what people around here call a pond. Everything is a pond here, no matter the size. We were going to kayak at the picnic, but it was pretty windy on the river so our new friends said we could at their place instead, where it would be calmer. Since this was to be our first time in a kayak, we thought that sounded better.

Kayaking was so much fun and the pond was beautiful. I'm sad we didn't have a camera with us to capture it. We went around a couple of small islands and I was surprised to see that we were pretty much the only people out on the water. I definitely want to do it again sometime. I hope we get the chance.

We finally got home for good Sunday evening and I pretty much collapsed and didn't do anything else. It felt so good.

Blueberries!

2010-08-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

It's blueberry season here in Maine which means you can buy wild blueberries practically everywhere. It also means that the blueberry pickers are in the area. We decided that instead of paying $5-6/quart we wanted to pick our own, for $1.50/quart. There was a list of places in the paper where you could pick your own so Jeremy called one and we were on our way.

I wish I got pictures of the picking process. It was a little sketchy. The place of business was a trailer out in the country, with a few other houses around. The houses were all surrounded by wild blueberry fields. The guy Jeremy talked to on the phone told us that he probably wouldn't be there, but to just pick some or talk to someone in the area and they'd tell us where to pick. We were to leave the money in the bucket on the porch.

When we got there, sure enough the guy wasn't there. We knocked on the door of a nearby house and no one was there either so we just started picking. I sure hope that we picked in the correct field and we weren't actually stealing from someone else. We left the money in the bucket so someone got paid at least.

Here is a picture of our bounty, after we picked them over for leaves and stems. We picked about two quarts in all. I'm planning on making a blueberry pie and pancakes out of some of them and freezing what's in the pan.

"Battle" at Fort Knox

2010-07-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Jeremy and I headed to nearby Bucksport for their annual town celebration. Mainly we went to see the reenactment battle they have at (the original) Fort Knox, which is across either a river or bay from town. I never know what body of water I'm looking at up here. It's all very confusing.

We rode a shuttle bus over the new bridge to the fort to watch the Civil War reenactment. Now you might be wondering what Civil War battle occurred this far north in Maine at Fort Knox. None. There was no actual battle. The reenactment was what could have happened if there was a battle. That was the whole reason I wanted to go - to see the reenactment of something that never happened. I kept hoping they'd reenact what actually did happen because it would be funny to have all those people there watching nothing, because that's actually the historical truth.

The reenactment wasn't very interesting. I had never been to one before, and now I don't feel the need to ever go again. At least now I know what all the fuss is about.

Summer Doldrums

2010-07-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

About this time every year I get antsy for it to finally be fall. Not because I'm looking forward to the cooler, crisp weather, but because this is the doldrums for sports. By the end of July, Wimbledon has been over for a couple weeks, and this year the World Cup has been over for a while as well. The US Open is still a month off and it's even longer until college football season starts. All we have right now is baseball, and I don't watch baseball on TV. Who does? This past Saturday I was bored - I wouldn't be bored if it was fall! I'd have football to watch (and listen to online when Baylor's games aren't be televised)!

This really is the worst time of year for sports fans.

2010-07-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I have started playing a game when we're both in the car when it's time to get gas. We guess how many gallons we need. That's it, but it's surprisingly fun and we're getting really good at it. The last few times we've played one of us has been with 0.1 of the correct amount. We may have to start guessing to the hundredth soon. We don't play by the Price is Right rules, that is, if you go over you automatically lose. That would make it even more difficult I think. The last time we guessed I was going back and forth between 14.1 and 14.2 gallons, but picked 14.1 because I didn't want to go over (even though we weren't playing Price is Right rules). It ended up being 14.7. Dang it, had I just guessed 14.2 I would have been ever closer. Jeremy recently was within something like .002 of the actual amount of gas.

We may need lives if this excites us, eh?

Boston

2010-07-16T09:23:00.001-07:00

Jeremy and I went to Boston this past week. He had a conference to go to and I saw the city while he was listening to talks. It worked out well for me. Boston is only about 4.5 hours from us so the drive wasn't bad at all, that is, until we got into the city. After getting lost once, we found our hotel and settled in.

I got to spend some time with Cecilia while there, since she's a grad student at BU. She showed me around the area we were staying in and we also went to the Science Museum together. That is a pretty cool place. I'd highly recommend it to anyone visiting Boston.

I got a "Boston City Pass" that gave me access to the science museum, sky walk observatory, aquarium, art museum, and either the natural history museum at Harvard or the JFK library for much cheaper than it would be to buy separate passes. I ended up going to all but the observatory and I picked the natural history museum over the JFK library, mainly just to see the Harvard campus. Jeremy was able to accompany me to that one. It was pretty lame and the campus wasn't as impressive as I expected it to be either. The art museum was my favorite attraction (I would also highly recommend it). It was HUGE and they're adding on another big wing. The aquarium wasn't the best I've been to. It was rather small and overrun by small children so it was hard to see a lot of fish. They do have a rather impressive penguin exhibit though.

We celebrated Jeremy's birthday while there and had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the North End followed by some awesome cannoli. it was pretty good, but since he didn't get a cake I'm making him one now. He has requested white chocolate with raspberry this year.

Also while in Boston, we were able to see my friend from Texas, Ceci, who is a grad student at BC and Jeremy's friend from Baylor, Derek, who is also a grad student there. Who knew we knew so many people in Boston? It was fun seeing them. We played trivia with Derek and his wife at a bar and were in the lead until they threw in a baseball "lightning round". We basically lost because we didn't know what teams all these baseball players are on. We got all the science questions though!

We came back Wednesday afternoon and will probably go back sometime for a weekend vacation now that we know how close it is. We're closer to Boston now than we were to Memphis when we lived in Knoxville. Crazy.

The Fourth

2010-07-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty good Fourth of July up here in Maine. Our town doesn't do anything, but there was a lot of stuff going on in nearby towns. We went to Bar Harbor on Saturday to watch the parade. It was no Gladstone parade, but it was still decent. I have never seen so many people (and animals) dressed up like lobsters before. I think the Fourth of July is synonymous with lobster day here.

After the parade we headed to the ballpark where other festivities were going on, including lobster races and blueberry pie eating contests. They were both fundraisers for the YMCA and a lot of fun. Here is a video of one of the lobster races. I picked the winning lobster correctly. Too bad I didn't bet on it.

The best part of the festivities was that I could eat almost everything there! In Knoxville, the only things I could eat were popcorn and giant pretzels. Here they had groups selling sandwiches for fundraisers and they had grilled cheese, pb & jelly, and hummus sandwiches! Also, there was a lot of seafood, and since I eat seafood, that was an option. Except that it was 10x the price of a grilled cheese... Another difference between here and Knoxville, I'm pretty sure I didn't see anything that was deep fried.

Oh, they are also serious about their desserts up here, especially their pie. A local garden club was selling slices of pie as a fundraiser and they had every kind of pie you could think of. Jeremy went with a slice of blueberry pie while I got strawberry shortcake from a nearby booth.

Sunday we went back to Bar Harbor for the fireworks. We got there three hours early and still had problems finding a good spot to sit. It was crazy packed, mostly with tourists. It was a good show though, so I think it was worth the wait, especially since we got to people watch while waiting. People watching here isn't as much fun as it is in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge though. Totally different crowd up here. Way less airbrushed t-shirts and I have yet to see a Confederate flag.

Working on the Farm

2010-07-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I joined a CSA in the area, but instead of paying for our fresh vegetables every week, we work 8 hours a week on the farm. Actually, we joined it along with our friends who moved here from Tennessee also. This was our first week going out to the farm to work. Since our friends were out of town, Jeremy and I went and each worked 8 hours. I picked spinach, weeded beets, gathered eggs, and washed spinach and meslun. Jeremy cut and washed lettuce and picked garlic scapes. In exchange for all this we left with two giant bags of spinach, a head of lettuce, a bag of mesclun, a bag of garlic scapes, and two dozen eggs. Most of the other people doing the workshare are doing it alone. I'm not sure how they eat all that food by themselves in a week. They must eat a lot of salad and eggs.

It was a lot of fun working out at the farm. We got to meet some people from the area and the farmer. One of the full time workers on the farm is actually from Tennessee. He even went to undergrad with a girl from my grad program. It's a crazy small world.

Settling In

2010-06-28T09:37:00.001-07:00

Not much has been going on here lately. I'm still looking for a job - it's not a fun process. I hope something comes through soon so I'll be less stressed. I have noticed something about Maine though. It reminds me a lot of da U.P., in good ways. It's very rustic, like the U.P., lots of tress and water, and the people are pretty similar too. Also, the weather is very comparable. It's pretty much been in the 70's, maybe low 80's every day. So much nicer than Tennessee, where it has been in the 90s-100s the past couple of weeks.

The weather is a bit odd here, however. In Knoxville, it would get warmer until about 4pm each day, then start cooling off slowly. Here, it peaks around noon and is much cooler by 3pm. I've been told this is because of the ocean - a southwest wind starts about noon each day, cooling the air. This makes so much sense, now that I know this. Before I was just perplexed as to why it was so much cooler every afternoon.

Other than thinking about the weather, we've been exploring some and getting to know the area. We found a cheap and good lobster place not far from us. We have been here over three weeks so we figured it was time we finally ate some lobster. It didn't disappoint. While we were eating there, on the patio, we saw a group of really pretty 20-30 year olds go in. This confused us because, much like the U.P., people don't really get dolled up to go out to eat here. You can never be under dressed anywhere. We figured they must be from Boston and vacationing here. A few minutes later another group of pretty people arrived. We heard one girl say she was getting married the next day. Then it all made sense, it was a destination wedding and this was the rehearsal dinner (also explains why half of the inside of the restaurant was reserved for a large group).

our new home

2010-06-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

I (Jeremy) started work at Jax this week, it's been pretty crazy learning all the ropes, but the work environment is great (and my desk has a pretty awesome view to boot). The commute is a bit much, at around an hour each way with tourist traffic, but I've been carpooling with a friend so that helps to pass the time.

Lots of people have been asking about our new digs in Maine. We had some friends over yesterday as a little housewarming, and to give us a reason to finish unpacking and clean. So, we figured we'd take some pictures of the layout. We still don't have a replacement TV yet (we sold our old one instead of moving it), but it should be here this week. The guest bedroom/office also still has quite a few boxes in it... It's easier to ignore the boxes than try to find a place to put all the stuff.

The awesome built-ins (we were very disappointed with ourselves, not filling them all...) looking towards the front door and through to the kitchen/dining area. Upstairs is the master bedroom, bathroom/laundry area, and the guest room/office.

A few of my favorite things

2010-06-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

We've been in our new place for a little over a week now and we're really enjoying it. Sorry, no pictures yet. We need to tidy up some before we can do that! Here is a list of some of my favorite parts of our new home:

1. Storage space - there is so much of it! And it's spread around. We have access to the unfinished basement where we have put stuff we don't need often. There is also a lot of space above part of the stairs. The kitchen cabinets are HUGE. And there are built in bookshelves and a cabinet in the living room.

2. Outlets - they're everywhere! Our bedroom in Knoxville had two. I think we have at least four or five here. Very convenient.

3. Our patio - It's very nice for grilling and eating outside. There is even built in benches around the edge.

4. An enclosed entry way - no more getting wet while trying to open the door in the rain! And, the mailbox is there too so no more getting wet getting the mail.

5. The washer and dryer - easily the largest I've seen for home use. I've done five loads of wash already, which would have easily been at least 7 or 8 in our old machines.

Bizarro Land Lowe's

2010-06-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

We made it to Maine. It was so nice to finally arrive and know we didn't have to drive that Penske truck anymore. Luckily we had great weather and great traffic for almost the entire trip. It rained yesterday, but held off while we got the truck unloaded. Some people from the Lutheran church in town came over to help us unload, which was very much appreciated. There was no way we could have done it by ourselves! Now it's just time to unpack, which is coming along slowly but surely.

We made a trip to Lowe's yesterday for some stuff we needed. Turns out there are only a couple of overhead lights here so we needed to buy some lamps. It was the most bizarre Lowe's trip ever. First, when we arrived, a guy greeted us and asked us if we needed help finding anything. When we told him what we were there for, he pointed us in exactly the right direction. Then, as we were walking that way, another employee said hello to us. We also saw another Lowe's worker asking other people if they needed help! What's going on? To make things even weirder, we saw numerous other Lowe's employees working and looking as if they like their jobs! Freaky! When we finally got to the lamp area the lady who worked in lamps came over to help us! It was so weird!

You might not think this is odd, but it's very different to the Lowe's back in Knoxville we shopped at. We could NEVER find anyone to help us and when we did, they never actually knew too well what was going on. Plus they always seemed to hate their jobs and all customers. Once we had to wait about 10-15 minutes while finding someone so we could get a piece of wood cut. When the guy finally did come, we acted as if it was such an inconvenience. Another time we were trying to buy a door, were standing in the door area actively looking through the little book thing, obviously had questions, and were acting confused, all while two Lowe's employees sat nearby shooting the breeze, completely oblivious to all nearby customers. Hence why we usually tried to shop at our neighborhood Ace for everything instead of driving across town to Lowe's.

2010-05-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

I feel like all I've been doing lately is packing and working. And if I'm not doing either of those I'm feeling guilty for not packing. The truck comes tomorrow and Jeremy is going to load what he can while I'm at work. Then Friday some friends are coming over to help with the rest of it. As social protocol dictates, we will provide the helpers with their choice of a PS3 or mountain bike (name that show. Saturday morning we roll out of here on the way to Jeremy's family in Pennsylvania.

It seems like there is so much I need to get done between now and then. I really just want to be in Maine already with all our stuff. Next time we move, I sure hope we can get movers. Side note, being a professional mover would have to be the worst job ever.

We're rapidly running out of food I want to eat in the house. I can't wait until I'm stocking my shelves instead of trying to eat everything so we don't have to move it. We're starting to get creative with what we eat when. I had leftover black bean enchiladas and I believe Jeremy had a meatloaf lean cuisine for breakfast.

The Door

2010-05-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

Today Jeremy and I went to Lowe's to order a new door. Once we got there and talked with one of the salespeople we found out that we didn't have to order it, they had them in stock. As soon as Jeremy pulled it off the shelf I asked him if it would fit in my car. He assured me it would if we put the back seat down. I looked at him skeptically and we went on our way. We arrived at my car and put down the back seat but as we started to put the door in the trunk, we realized that the opening through the back seat was about two inches too narrow. Of course I immediately said "Hey, remember when I asked you if the door would fit in my car and you said yes?!" As we stood around for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do, I noticed that the parking lot was full of trucks and SUVs. I jokingly said "maybe we can pay someone in one of these trucks to take it home for us." No more than 20 seconds later a guy pulled up in a Chevy Silverado and asked how far we were going. We told him and he said he'd take it for us if one of us rode with him. I, of course, nominated Jeremy because I try not to ride in trucks with strange guys if at all possible (Except for that one time in Texas when I had a flat I've managed not to. See, I didn't die, mom!).

So now the door, and both of us, are home and our faith in humanity is restored. Thank you guy at Lowe's with a truck.

Stress

2010-04-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a rather stressful past month. For a while we weren't sure if we'd still be moving to Maine next month or if it would be later in the summer. That made planning for anything pretty much impossible. As of now, we're still not 100% sure it is happening next month, but we're sure enough that we went ahead and sent in our deposit and signed the lease for an apartment today. This help relieve some of the stress since we were having a tough time finding a place. Since it's such a small area, there aren't really any big apartment complexes. Most of the places to rent are owned by an individual, not a company. We called and emailed so many places and hardly any would even return a call or email. It was very frustrating. Jeremy probably contacted at least 15 that didn't get back to us. The ones that did get back to us weren't the best - very small, run down, etc. I'm so happy we found a place that looks pretty great. It's a two story apartment connected to the landlord's house, but has it's own entrance and back patio. It also has a dishwasher and washer and dryer. Plus there is a garage that Jeremy can probably park his motorcycle in during winter.

To add to the stress, we were in a car accident two weeks ago. It wasn't bad, but my car got a little dented. An older man didn't realize we didn't have a stop sign (even though there was a big sign saying northbound traffic didn't stop) and he hit us. Again, it wasn't bad, just a bother. I have a rental car right now while the car is in the shop.

Now we're in the pack-the-house-up phase of moving. I hate packing so much, but we got some boxes through freecycle. We're trying to do it a little at a time. Hopefully this will work and we won't have to do everything at the last minute. Also, I've started looking for a job some up in Maine. I also hate the job hunting process.

On the upside, I rearranged my work schedule this week for a meeting at UT that never happened and flexed some hours at CASA so I have today off. It was nice to sleep in, especially since I'm now coming down with a cold. At least it's over a long weekend so I'll be better by Monday.

2010-04-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Currently in our house we have whole wheat flour, rye flour, self rising flour, and cake flour but no all-purpose flour. We also have honey, brown sugar, molasses, and pure maple sugar but no white sugar. In about two weeks I'll be able to say we have every spice on earth but no table salt.

I'm torn if I should buy some of this stuff since I'll just have to move it soon. We're kind of trying to use up what we can right now but it's getting difficult to do things like bake.

My Bread Machine

2010-04-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

We bought a bread machine a little over a year ago and I must say, I think it's pretty great. Well, except that the pan pops out during kneading so we have to rig it so it will stay put and then remember to un-rig it so it will rise properly. Other than that, it's great.

Now that we have it, we rarely ever buy bread or bread products. This basically means that our bread consumption has greatly decreased. We actually use the machine mostly for making pizza dough. We love our pizza. I also use it to make dough for rolls. So handy not having to knead stuff myself. We don't make bread as much now as when we first got it, I will admit. We used to make all sorts, now it's mostly pumpernickel with occasionally wheat or wheat-oat.

The only bread products we now buy are from the "Oops, we baked too much!" section at Kroger and it's usually things like hoagie and hamburger rolls or French bread. They are super cheap and we freeze them until we need them. It's great.

Chimney Tops

2010-04-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I didn't have work so Jeremy and I went for a hike. We've done this in the past on Good Friday, but with a group. This year we went solo. We decided to do Chimney Tops in the Smokies because I think it's one of those hikes you're supposed to do at some point if you live here. It's only 4 miles total, but it's pretty strenuous - two miles up, two miles down. Plus, once you get to the top, or near the top, it's literally a climb up a rock face to get to the very top. Once we got there, I was unsure if I actually wanted to go to the top, but knew I'd regret it if I didn't. The boys in front of us told me there was an easier way down on the other side so I decided to do it. The climb was a bit scary, and I was definitely aware of my own mortality during it. I was extra careful since I knew I couldn't get hurt since my health insurance doesn't actually cover anything.

I wish we got a good picture of the rock climb at the top. It was pretty crazy. Plus whatever kind of rock it was heated up in the sun and burned your hands. I was happy we weren't there later in the day or it would have been impossible.

The park and the trail we were on were fairly busy since it was spring break for a lot of people, but luckily we went early enough in the day that it wasn't too bad. On the way down the mountain we saw a TON of people going up. And for some reason, a lot of those people didn't have any water. I don't think they knew what was ahead.

Here is a video Jeremy took of the 360 degree view at the top:

And here's a picture of the way down. See those rocks? That was the climb up.

Ice Cream, with a Twist

2010-03-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

There is a newish ice cream place in Knoxville called Chill Custom Creamery. Jeremy and I tried it out yesterday and I must say, I was pleased. It's different than any other ice cream place I've been to. When you enter, you choose either a vanilla, chocolate, or soy liquid base. You then go done a buffet line and add whatever flavors, candies, or cookies you want. At the end they freeze and blend it using liquid nitrogen so that you essentially made your own, unique ice cream. It's a really neat concept. They price it by weight so you can add as much or as little as you want, depending on how much you want to pay at the end.

I made a raspberry, marshmellow-y ice cream with chocolate add ins such as brownie bites, snickers, and oreos. Jeremy did a peanut butter theme for his. Both were really good. We'll probably go back sometime soon.

What's the opposite of an ode?

2010-03-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

Because whatever it is, that's what I'm writing to my oven. I hate my oven. For a while we didn't think it was pre-heating to the correct temperature so we bought a thermometer and sure enough, it wasn't getting hot enough. I ended up having to set it to about 15-35 degrees hotter so it would get to the right temperature. It worked fine that way for a while, but now it's gone crazy. A few weeks ago I set it to 380 so that it would heat to 350, like normal, but instead it heated to 385. Two weeks ago I set it to 425 and it beeped at 300. No matter what temperature I set it to it wouldn't get above 400. The next day it was fine and heated normally. Yesterday I set it to 350 and it beeped at 295. I turned off the oven, set it again and it worked fine, heated to 350.

I can't wait until we get our own place and can buy our own appliances.

Gary Paulsen

2010-03-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Last week Jeremy and I went to see Gary Paulsen, the author of Hatchet and many other books, speak at UT. He was quite entertaining - more so than I expected. Apparently he doesn't do many public events. He talked mostly about his life, including growing up in Minnesota to abusive, alcoholic parents, how he started writing, racing sled dogs, and the like. He's a very interesting guy. Some of the stories were a little, er, colorful and I'm not sure if all the parents of the children in the room appreciated that, but I think the kids did. He was pretty funny.

I loved Hatchet when I was a kid. I think I've only read one other of the Brian series though. Jeremy had never read Hatchet until a couple years ago! I found out he hadn't read it and freaked out. He also never read My Side of the Mountain. I made him go to the library and get both. I guess he was too busy reading sci-fi as a kid to read the classics...

I bought Gary Paulsen's new book at the event and was going to get him to sign it, but the line was ridiculously long. I swear every 4-7th grader in the area must have been in it. After waiting for about 20 minutes and knowing that it would probably be about an hour more, we left. It was already 8:30pm by that time and we had stuff we needed to get done that night. I was a little disappointed, but I knew we really needed to leave.

Play Ball

2010-03-05T09:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, as I was leaving work, I noticed some elementary age children at the community center across from the courthouse playing touch football. I immediately wanted to join them. I miss recess. I really do. There should be a part of the work day for adults that is designated to just run around and have fun.

That same afternoon Jeremy and I went to some soccer fields to look around. Our church and another one are teaming together for a day of community service and we're looking at fixing up the grounds of the soccer fields. As we were leaving a bunch of kids were arriving for practice. For the second time that day, I again wished I could join in. I miss playing sports. I told Jeremy it was a good thing we weren't looking at tennis courts or I'd REALLY want to play.

Let it Snow

2010-02-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

When I was a small child, like 4-7ish I used to always wish for it to snow on my birthday. Whenever I threw a penny into a fountain or blew out my birthday candles or whenever else you can make a wish, that's what I wished for. I mean, what else is there to wish for when you're that age? A pony?

For years I forgot about that wish until my freshman year at Baylor. The night of February 24th into the morning of the 25th, my 19th birthday, we got a snow/ice storm and campus was closed on my birthday and all classes were cancelled! Finally after all those years my birthday wish paid off!

Again this year, we were driving home the night of the 24th and it was snowing - enough for the ground at our house to get a dusting. I woke up the morning of the 25th and it was snowing then too - big fat flakes. It snowed all the way into work and supposedly was snowing while I was in court. By the time we got out of court after 12pm the snow had stopped and all the snow on the ground had melted. It was nice while it lasted though.

I have decided that I need to put a time frame on my wishes. I mean, I haven't wished for it to snow on my birthday since I was probably about 6-7. 15-20 years is a little long to wait for a wish to come true. For now on, I will be more specific with my wishes.

King Tut's

2010-02-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's day Jeremy and I went to a quirky Egyptian restaurant in town called King Tut's. We also went there last year for V-Day. And we've been there a handful of other times. It's quite an interesting place. First of all, it's located in a tiny building in not the best neighborhood. If you didn't know it was there, you might not notice it. Also, it never looks like it's open, even though it is.

The restaurant is ran by a couple, the husband, Mo, works the front of the house and his wife cooks. Mo always suggests pretty much the same thing to everyone - a Greek salad and the Egyptian sampler to share between two people. He claims the Greek salad is the best in Knoxville and I'd have to say I agree. It's the best I've ever had. On V-Day when we were there we suggested the salad and sampler, like always, but he was also suggesting each couple get the stuffed tilapia, which was that night's special. Jeremy and I stuck to our usual since we knew the salad and sampler were enough to fill us and bring home some leftovers. As usual, we weren't disappointed.

One of the best parts of the King Tut's is it's bring your own wine. Always a good way to save some money. If you don't bring alcohol, you can always get a soft drink or water served in vases. Yes, drinks are served in vases. Part of the quirkiness. Also, the tables are crammed in the small dining space. We were sitting rather close to the people at the booth next to us. Slightly awkward. Mo also performs magic tricks occasionally. Once while we were there he tricked a guy into singing karaoke. Never a dull moment.

Oh, one thing about King Tut's that should be noted is it's cash or check only. We saw no less than three guys leave to go get cash so they could pay. Oops.

After our meal we went to UT for a free concert put on by the UT symphony orchestra. It was fun, and I appreciated that they put in the length of each selection in the program. I always get so anxious not knowing how long a song is going to last.

2010-02-10T07:30:00.000-08:00

I think I'm secretly much older than 25. I just like and do too many things that are associated with people who are older.

1. I LOVE potlucks
2. I like casseroles.
3. I prefer hymns and liturgy to praise and worship and "contemporary" church music
4. When we drove to Kansas for Christmas I insisted we bring sandwiches for lunch, and not just any sandwiches, but egg salad sandwiches.
5. I just don't understand teenagers today
6. I'm extremely frugal. I got excited the other day because there was a $1.00 off coupon for oatmeal (the canister kind) in the Sunday paper.
7. I only eat oatmeal from canisters.
8. I have many friends who are 55+
9. I participate in organizations and groups where I am easily the youngest by at least 20 years (some I'm the youngest by 40 years)

I think these examples might help explain why people always think I'm older than 25. Multiple people recently have commented about how they thought I was older. No, I'm not, I'm just a big dork.

2010-01-29T09:20:00.001-08:00

In general, I like to avoid awkward situations whenever possible. Maybe it's just me, but I just don't like them.

Wednesday I got a call from the lady I house/dog sit for. Her next door neighbor had passed away and the family wanted someone to sit with the dog/the house while everyone was at the funeral. I said I could do it, no problem, although I wouldn't get home from work early enough so I said I could send Jeremy over until I could get there. Jeremy got there right after everyone left and I arrived about an hour later. He had choir practice in the evening so then it was just me and the dogs. We were told the family would return at about 10pm. Jeremy took my car to choir and left his motorcycle. He was to get home around 8:50ish. At about 8:40 people some people returned. I didn't know them, they didn't know me. And they didn't know that I didn't know the people whose house it was and that I had no idea what was going on. Plus, I couldn't leave since Jeremy wasn't back yet. Luckily he returned about 1 minute after they did. We started packing up all our stuff and more and more people kept returning. It was pretty awkward, especially since we really didn't know anyone at all. There were all these people around, dressed up, and then us - in jeans and carrying backpacks trying to get out of there.

Moral of the story, watching a dead stranger's house and dogs has the potential to be very awkward.

On a positive note, I did get to eat a lot of cashews while there. I love cashews.

Weakpasswords.org

2010-01-22T08:16:00.000-08:00

Jeremy made a website yesterday because he got fed up with websites not allowing secure passwords. He posted it to a few geeky places on the web and it's taken off. You can visit it here. The plan is to email all these sites telling them that people want to be able to make more secure passwords. If enough people feel this way, maybe the sites (banks mostly) will change what characters they allow in passwords, thus making it more secure.

Here's to 2010

2010-01-18T10:53:00.001-08:00

This year I made two new year's resolutions:

1) Eat more pizza, and
2) Make at least one new dish each week.

This second one I made for three reasons:

1) I need something to keep me entertained
2) I get tired of eating the same meals over and over, and
3) I have so many cookbooks and I want to use them

So far it's been fun. The first week I made potpie, although I will admit I didn't use a recipe from one of my cookbooks - I found a recipe online and then tweaked it. The second week I made a mushroom quiche because Jeremy loves quiche and I had never made one before. It turned out pretty good. This week I'm making "creamy scrambled chenna cheese with tomatoes and zucchini" from my The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking cookbook. I'm also going to try my hand at making some naan. I've already made the cheese for the dish, using a different method than I usually do, and I'm not too sure of how it turned out. It made less than I think it should have. Oh well, live and learn.

2010-01-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about my new job at CASA is that it has expanded my every day vocabulary. I get to use words and phrases that I seldom, or never, used before. Here are some of my favorites:

1. "Clear and convincing evidence" - I like to use this in my every day life now. I like to point out clear and convincing evidence whenever I see it. It's quite fun.

2. All forms of "allege" - we use this a lot before the judge finds "clear and convincing evidence" that someone did or didn't do something. The mom "allegedly" did X or Y to the child.

3. "putative" - we talk about putative fathers A LOT. I also learned that if a woman is married, but has a child with another man, the husband is the legal father of that child until he takes a DNA test to prove he is not the father. It doesn't matter if they have been separated for years.

4. "paramour" - This is perhaps my favorite. I'm pretty sure I never used this word before working in court. Now I like to use it all the time. I'm still unclear whether or not a man can have a paramour who is a woman of if only woman can have male paramours. I've only seen it used when talking about a man, but I'm pretty sure it's definition is actually gender neutral. Oh, on another note, I came across this word last night while reading World Without End. Now I'm on the lookout for it elsewhere.

We Three Kings

2010-01-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

This Christmas we had the Three Wise Men making their way across the living room to the manger scene. When they were on top of the TV one fell and his head broke off.

It's okay though because now he can double as John the Baptist.

Home Sweet Home

2010-01-02T09:22:00.001-08:00

After a busy week and a half Jeremy and I are finally relaxing at home. We seriously did nothing yesterday but watch movies and sit on the couch. It was awesome. Our travels began by visiting my family in Kansas and seeing the newest nephew. I unfortunately forgot my camera, but Melissa has a lot of pictures posted at her blog. We had a good time playing board games, eating, holding the baby, and thankfully not dying in the "blizzard."

This is my favorite picture of AJ, that I stole from Melissa:

On Christmas day we headed over to Kansas City to see Jeremy's family. Jeremy, his brother, and I went to the art museum while there. It was the first time I'd been since I was about 8 and Jeremy hadn't been since he was in middle school. It sure has grown since then. We also introduced Jon to Mongolian BBQ at Genghis Khan - a place we always have to visit while we're in KC. Jeremy and I went down to the Plaza Saturday night to look at the lights. Because of the snow/"blizzard" not many people were out and we didn't stay too long since it was so cold.

We came back Sunday, I worked for two days, and we left again Wednesday to head up to Indianapolis for Charee's wedding. It was great to see her, Seth, and Eric. It had been too long! After staying up way too late we returned on Thursday and somehow made it until midnight to ring in the new year. Now we're at home doing nothing and enjoying it. I have no more travel plans until March so it's time to finally unpack all the way I guess. That has to be my least favorite part of travel

2009-12-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

Long story, but Jeremy and I switch which side of the bed we sleep on based on what season it is. Currently I am on the right side of the bed, but for some reason my default side is the left side. While we were house sitting for a week I slept on the left side, which means that when my alarm went off in the morning, I had to turn to my left side to turn it off. Wednesday night was our first night back in our house. I went back to sleeping on the right side of the bed. When my alarm went off in the morning, I got confused and turned to my left to turn it off. I ended up hitting Jeremy on the head before remembering that I was back home and sleeping on the other side of the bed. I quickly turned to my right and hit my alarm, but not before Jeremy said "Did you just try to snooze me?"

Yes, yes I did.

Merry Christmas...

2009-12-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

We got robbed this past weekend. We were house sitting for the past week, went home Saturday morning to pick up some stuff only to find our backdoor kicked in. At first we thought the robbers took only the wii, xbox, video games, and dvds, but last night we looked around more and realized they also took Jeremy's camera bag, some other electronic gadgets he has, and my backpack. Not cool. Luckily I didn't have much in my backpack (although I really liked it!!) but Jeremy's camera bag had at least two cameras in it, a bunch of lenses, and other camera equipment. He also had that bag since he was 14 or 15. I think we were more upset last night when we found out what else they took than when we thought it was only the video game stuff and dvds.

Jeremy talked with our neighbor yesterday and found out that at least two other houses in the neighborhood have been broken into since ours was. At one they didn't get anything at least, I'm not sure about the other house. If they're going to keep hitting our area, maybe they'll get caught. I sure hope so. We gave the police the serial numbers for the wii and xbox so if they try to pawn those they might be able to track the thieves.

Today is our last day house sitting so it will be the first night back in our house since the robbery. It was kind of nice not having to sleep and stay there right after it happened - we got some time away to process and relax (some). Jeremy is setting up a camera so in case this ever happens again, we'll at least have footage of the people. Sometimes it's nice to be married to a geek who can do all that!

Oh Christmas Tree

2009-12-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

Saturday Jeremy and I helped hang up the greens at church. Well, Jeremy helped hang them, I stayed on the ground and arranged poinsettias and "fluffed" the greens. I'm not sure I did a very good job - I kept telling them they had the wrong person for the job. My decorating skills are lacking. Anyways, this helped to motivate us to pull out our own decorations and get a tree. Slowly but surely we're building up an ornament collection.

It's a little scraggly in places, but hey, we didn't want to pay $15 more for a tree that wasn't! We bought it from a tree lot not far from our house. It was a local place, I don't even think it was affiliated with any business, just a tree lot in the middle of a parking lot. They were really nice and helpful - the guy even tied it to the car for us - something that didn't happen last year when we bought the tree at Lowe's.

In other Christmas news I've been in a dessert making frenzy. Between the Advent potluck at church Wednesday, our work party Friday afternoon, and No Room at the Inn at church on Friday night it's been a busy week. The hardest part, though, is not eating all the cookies!

The Clinton 12

2009-12-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

Last night we hosted a movie night for our volunteers, aka, CASAs at the Green McAdoo Cultural Center. We thought it would be a good way for them to meet one another and also it could count for continuing ed hours for them. We watched The Clinton 12, which is a documentary about the first high school in the south to integrate its students. It happened in Clinton, TN - the town I work in. For some reason, many people in the area do not know about this historical event. Many others didn't hear about it until this documentary came out a couple years ago. One of our CASAs lived next door to one of the Clinton 12 for years but only ever heard him talk about it once.

The desegregation in Clinton in 1956 was a pretty big deal. Media came from all over, as did white supremacists. The high school was even bombed two years after the integration. It's so weird that this little town in East Tennessee was home to such historical events, but so many have no idea. Some of the Clinton 12 are still in the area, or their families are. The director of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center it is the younger sister of one of the students. She didn't even know about all the events until much later in life. One of our CASAs, who integrated her elementary school in Kentucky in the 1950s likened it to a war - like many veterans won't talk about their experiences, its the same for these students who integrated. They don't want to remember all of the horrible things that happened.

I'd recommend the documentary to everyone. I don't think you can get it on Netflix so that's an issue. PBS did show a shortened version recently so it might be available through their website.

Some Letters

2009-11-25T05:40:00.000-08:00

Dear rabbit digging under our house all night,

Please stop. I recognized that you're a hard worker and that it's probably warm under our house, but please, please stop. If you could do your digging during the day, or not at all, we'd be much happier, and more well rested.

Love,
The Residents of the House

Dear Landlords,

Remember when you said you found a rabbit hole near our house and you were going to do something about it? We'd appreciate it if you did. I might just lose my sanity if this night time digging doesn't stop soon, making it harder for us to pay rent.

Love,
Your Renters

Dear Nephews,

Please come visit soon and bring your dad and his guns. We are willing to let you shoot the rabbits living under and near our house. You can even keep the meat and the furs, to match the one you already have. And while we are in the city limits, we are willing to break a law or two to allow you to hunt these rabbits. I've heard two late night gun shots in our neighborhood recently so what's the big deal about shooting pesky rabbits?

Love,
Your Aunt and Uncle

Women's Basketball (Go Lady Bears!)

2009-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

A month or so ago Jeremy and I finally got around to visiting the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame here in Knoxville. We got some free tickets through freecycle, but it took us a while to have a free Saturday. The museum was interesting, but I don't know if I'd necessarily go if we hadn't gotten the free passes. Although it was nice to see stuff about the Baylor Lady Bears in the museum. Their coach (Kim Mulkey) was inducted sometime in recent years and there were pictures of the 2005 national championship team (my junior year). I did think that there was too much stuff devoted to Tennessee's team, in my opinion.

The Lady Bears and Lady Vols are playing next Sunday here in Knoxville and Jeremy and I bought tickets to the game. I'm very excited! It should be a pretty good game since both teams are ranked high and it's the season opener for both teams. I'm a little disappointed, however, because there isn't a section for the away team's fan. I was hoping to get to sit with other Baylor fans. Oh well. It was funny though, because one day at work I was telling my coworker that I would NEVER go to a Lady Vols game and then two hours later I got an email from Baylor about the game here in Knoxville. Oops, guess I WILL see a Lady Vols game after all.

Here are some pictures from our trip to the Hall of Fame:

Baylor Homecoming 2009

2009-10-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I went to Waco this past weekend for Baylor's Homecoming. It was the first one we've been to since graduating, and also the 100th anniversary of Homecoming there so we figured it was time to go. It was a blast. I'm so glad we went. As a student I always saw the alumni walking around campus Friday afternoon of Homecoming, reminiscing, and now WE got to be the alumni doing that.

This was the first time Jeremy has been back to Baylor since graduation. I went about a year and a half ago, but it wasn't the same. It was a weekend and campus was dead. This time was so much better with all the hustle and bustle of Homecoming activities. We toured some of our old buildings, bought a ton of Baylor merchandise, saw a couple of people Jeremy worked with at the library, and made the all the obligatory remarks about "how much campus has changed."

We also got to see many of our old friends from Baylor, which was awesome. It was actually kind of a whirlwind of a weekend, trying to spend time with everyone we wanted to see. It was great though. I even got to see and talk with a couple of my favorite professors! We also saw the parade, me for the first time ever. I never saw it as a student because it was just so darn early. I said every year that it was for the alumni who come back for Homecoming, so when I come back, I'll go then.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Yes, Samuel Brooks, we will!

My old dorm! My window is covered by the tree (3rd floor up, window just to the right of the last column).

Fireworks over Pat Neff. What recession?

Us with Chris and Meredith at the bonfire. We're so sad they moved back to Houston.

Me with Anali and Claire. We used to get in some good trouble together back in the day. Viva la revolucion!

Roommates and an apartment friend at the football game! I miss these girls.

We're hoping to be able to make it back for Homecoming more often in the future. As we walked around campus, we both kept commenting that we were so glad we went to Baylor. It's so different from the University of Tennessee, and in good ways. The people are so nice and friendly. I had forgotten all about that. Plus campus is beautiful and professors geniunely care about their students. Now it does have its faults, for sure, but I am so happy I went there and made the friendships and connections I did. Sic 'em bears!

I love Fall

2009-10-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

It's officially fall here. A cold front came through at the beginning of the week and the weather has been "delightful" as my weatherbug says. It's been cool enough in the morning for me to wear a jacket to work. Unfortunately my office is cold enough for me to have to keep wearing the jacket most of the day.

My favorite part of fall is eating fall foods, especially pumpkin. I made my favorite pumpkin soup this week. I first saw the recipe in the food section of our paper two years ago and had to make it for dinner that day. I later found out it's a Racheal Ray recipe. Nevertheless, it has become one of my favorite fall dishes. I make it with vegetable stock instead of chicken. Also, this time I used 2% milk instead of heavy cream in an effort to be healthier. Neither Jeremy nor I could taste the difference.

I also made homemade rolls to go with the soup. I used my new favorite roll recipe, compliments of Tasty Kitchen. They are divine. And, I actually used the bread basket we got for our wedding as an actual bread basket! Usually I put fruit in it since we don't have a fruit bowl. It works better for bread though. Shocking, I know.

Next pumpkin food to make: Pumpkin bread, or pumpkin pancakes. I can't decide.

2009-09-11T06:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a rather busy past week and a half. Last week we went up to Detroit for Allie's wedding. It was a lot of fun, but also exhausting. I'm glad I'll never have to plan a wedding again - so much work! It was great to see family and meet Cory's family though. They were really nice and welcoming. They even took us on their boat!

I told Jeremy when we got home that I needed a vacation from our vacation. Lucky Allie and Cory - they get to relax for a week while the rest of us have to go back to the real world. At least Monday was Labor Day though, that way we got a day to unwind before regular life resumed.

And in my case regular life didn't resume, I started a new job on Tuesday! I am now a program coordinator for CASA. I'm working there part time and at UT part time. So far it's been good and I'm really enjoying it. I've been getting a feel for the job this week - going to court a lot, learning how to use the databases, reading files, etc. I'm still trying to figure out my schedule so I can be there and at UT for the time I need to be each week. I'm really at the mercy of the court's schedule though.

Another Cupcake Taste Test

2009-09-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

Back in January, I did a review of the three cupcake shops in town. Since then, I was told that I should try the cupcakes at Cafe 4, a newish trendy restaurant/bakery in Market Square. I finally got around to it yesterday. Yesterday was August 31, the day that all the coupons expire in the school coupon book. I was flipping through it and saw a coupon I had never noticed before - one free cupcake from Cafe 4, no purchase required. I couldn't pass that up so Jeremy and I headed down after dinner for some dessert. I first noticed that the selection wasn't that great. They had standard chocolate or white cake topped with different choices of frosting. I got the chocolate peanut butter and Jeremy got the raspberry truffle.

I was greatly disappointed. The chocolate cake, which was the same on both of ours, was dry, crumbly, and tasted like it came out of a box. Nothing like the light and fluffy cake of Cities Cupcake or like the dense and moist cake of Cupcakery or Magpies. My peanut butter frosting was good, a touch on the sweet side for me, but good. I didn't care for Jeremy's raspberry frosting at all. He thought there wasn't enough of a raspberry flavor, I just thought it tasted bad and artificial.

The cupcakes were a good size for the price, but if I'm going to buy a cupcake, I won't go out of my way to buy one from Cafe 4.

That Good Ol' Baylor Line...

2009-08-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

Classes started here at UT last Wednesday so all last week the campus was busy with people moving in, students buying books, freshman trying to figure out their way around campus. Friday night they (who "they is, I'm not sure) had free pool, bowling, table tennis, etc, at the University Center. I'm guessing it was to entice all the new students to spend Friday nights there in the future when it wasn't free.

Anyways, Jeremy and I went and enjoyed some free pool and people watched the freshmen and other students. Watching the freshmen reminded me how much I hated my first semester at Baylor, especially those first few weeks. I was so far from home, so far from my friends, I knew no one. And on top of that, there was this immense culture shock of being in Texas with all those Baptists and it was so hot. Those first few weekends were awkward. You'd hang out with people you met, people on your floor of the dorm, but you didn't really know them so you were forced to meet all these people, kind of picking and choosing who you thought you'd mesh with. Also, a lot of people went home those first few weekends, leaving me and other out-of-staters alone in our rooms.

Man am I glad those days are over and that I never have to be a freshman in college again.

However, the more I thought about new school years, the more I realized how much I loved the beginning of my sophomore-senior years of college. I loved going back to Baylor and seeing all my friends and roommates I hadn't seen in a few months. By this time I had good friends, I knew my way around campus, I had a major I was thoroughly enjoying, and I had adapted (somewhat) to the Texas heat. Life was great.

Jeremy and I are going to Baylor for Homecoming this year and I am really excited. I have only been back to Baylor once since graduating and Jeremy hasn't at all. I know at least two of my roommates are going to be there, along with other friends I haven't seen in a while.

However bad that first semester was, I'm glad I stuck it out. Although, I never thought about transferring closer to home. Now, after experiencing a different university, I am so happy I went to Baylor. It is such a great community and school. I can't imagine what my life would be like had I gone elsewhere.

Ode to My Recipe Box

2009-08-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe box on a whim last year. We were at a craft store for something else and saw these on clearance by the check out lanes. They were super cheap so I had to get one, and a couple of extra packets of recipe cards.

I can't tell you how much I love having this. So many of the recipes I make I get from online. But I hate having my computer in the kitchen so I generally put it on the table in the dining room, but I also hate having to go back and forth to the table. Sometimes I will print the recipes, but then I don't have anywhere neat to put all the sheets of paper. I could just put them in a folder, but that's not as much fun. Now I generally make the recipe once, while looking at it online, and if I like it enough, I will write the recipe on a card so in the future I can just bring the card into the kitchen. I'm kind of a messy cook so it works out much better this way. Who cares if the card gets messy, but a computer on the other hand...