This week so far.

Monday brought a picnic at Shelley and Erin's-- yay! I made pierogie bake *yum*-- not fancy, but so tasty-- with a stick of butter how could it not be! We had lots of grilled food, got to swim (that was a great treat on a hot day) and I played croquet. Over all a very nice day.

Tuesday was back to work-- then Roy brought up the poo machine winnie and returned murph to us. The cat is terrified and has spent the last 2 days hiding in a cardboard box in a room closed off with a baby gate-- poor thing. shes's miserable. Winnie has poo'd in the house 2x so far and peed all over a rug--- luckily, she was confined outside of bedrooms and the large oriental rugs, so it was only on a throw rug and could be washed-- still--- she is not on my good list right now. She better straighten up and behave-- and quickly. She's getting walked as much as we can with work schedules--- she's going to have to adapt and quick-- or I will be a very very very unhappy girl.

Wednesday brought my summer internship kid to the lab. His name is Will. He just finished his sophomore year at Temple and will be working with me this summer (til early August) so we'll see how that all goes. Then it was wings night-- this week I tried wings from scratch-- some deep fried then coated with a franks hot sauce/butter/steak sauce blend and some baked in a honey-soy-citrus glaze I made up-- both turned out pretty well I must say! We played Wii! I may be addicted-- its a video game that doesn't make you play like a video game-- if the character on the screen sword fights, you move the controller like a sword-- tennis, like a tennis racket, hula hoop... well.. you put it on your hips and hula away. it is very very very amusing-- and thankfully, much simpler than the traditional style games-- very little time to learn--and great to play in a group! All in all a fun evening.

Today-- well, the report on today will have to wait til its over... but so far so good.

Keeping busy til Craig gets home...

Tiki is a funny cat-- I mean, how often do you see a kitten pant. Thank Kim for the spiffy Cat toy/fishing rod thingy! I now have one VERY VERY VERY tired kitten!


And one more view--- She's just too cute not to share.

ok... I admit it...

ok, I admit it, I miss him. And I am slightly annoyed that he won't answer the cell so I know when they'll be home.

Also, TV sucks on a Sunday afternoon-- there is NOTHING to watch. So here I sit... well, at least I got a little photo editing done.

Time to round up some lunch.

Post #60!

Wow... this is my 60th post. Cool. Hope someone is still reading and at least mildly amused. I need to remind myself of this... and its a great song-- and a great message-- so here it is--
Turn up your volume and Enjoy! (FYI, Ecclesiastes 3:-1-7(?))

All by myself...

For the first time in 6 months I have the house to MYSELF! Craig is gone camping for a bachelor party in Indiana for the weekend. I was a good wife and sent him with cookies for the drive... but now I am enjoying the peace and quiet.

Last night I ordered in the pizza I wanted (spinach alfredo with chicken and tomatoes) and then went to see Shrek 3 (cute, but not as good as the last 2).

This morning I slept in til 11! yes, that's right 11--- I got to enjoy saturday morning cartoons and then went back to sleep woohoo! I only got up at 11 to see who was knocking on the door. It was they neighbor lady. She backed into Craig's car. She says she only scratched the paint and they will fix it. I have to go check that out. UGH. not fun, but theres nothing to be done about it til Craig gets home and decides what he wants to do.

As for the rest of today-- relaxing and vegging out and maybe a little shopping later. We'll see.

Happy weekend one and all.

The Weekend

We were out in Jersey for the weekend at Craig's parents-- I went shopping, wandered Wegmans (I love that place) and baked a cake. Craig dug out old fence posts and replaced them in concrete, rewired a lamp post, and replaced a toilet-- so guess who had a more relaxing weekend?! (Ok, so I did help with the toilet)
Wegman's is sooooo cool, I wish there were one closer. We keep hearing promises, but they never materialize. They have EVERYTHING. I got the yummy aged primadonna cheese we got hooked on while dating and taking trips to the reading terminal market (another wonderful place for food), the cotija cheese I need to make Craig the chilaquiles he got addicted to for breakfast in Puerto Vallarta, green Thai curry paste, lemongrass, mirin, rose and orange blossom waters, and these super tiny red skin and white potatoes-- they are going to be yummy. Oh! And the very best thing--- Digestive cookies! I love those things, my madre in Spain had them out almost every morning at breakfast-- sooooo good. And I can never find them anywhere-- and they had them, both the plain ones and the chocolate covered ones. YAY!!!!

On Sunday evening we grilled dinner in... I took care of the baked potatoes (somehow everyone thinks mine are really good-- I don't do anything much special to them-- I just put some olive oil, salt and pepper on the outside-- though this time I used "Crazy Jane's Mixed up Salt" and then bake them for a while)-- made some bacon for them, sauteed up some mushrooms and then made a little foil packet of smushed garlic and olive oil and threw that on the grill while Roy cooked the steaks-- the garlic turned out very yummy that way. I also made that coconut cake that I make all too often now and filled it with some whipped cream and fresh strawberries. Yum... a good dinner-- but it made for us getting a late start to get home.

We left Murph there to get him a vet visit and groomed (he was starting to stink!) and Jane and Roy will bring him back next Monday or Tuesday. Tiki really misses her buddy... she just wanders looking for him. Oh well, is she in for a shock when he gets back-- winnie's coming with him to stay for a month--- poor kitten won't know what hit her!

That's it for the weekend. Not too big. Yesterday was Bachelor Season Finale-- I had correctly predicted the winner-- so that was super exciting and we had a nice girl's night watching the finale.
Today its back to work-- gotta get some data--- want to graduate before I am 50.

You might be a grad student if...

you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar. (guilty... so sad, but true- I feel bad for the folks who came to wing-night with there significant others who are not in science-- 2 hours of discussion of Northern Blotting techniques- not so much fun for them)
you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.
you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text. you have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.
you reflexively start analyzing those greek letters before you realize that it's a sorority sweatshirt, not an equation.
you find yourself explaining to children that you are in "20th grade". (actually for those keeping track-- I'm just wrapping up 20th grade, so soon it will be 21st grade-- its sad... I have spent 5 times more years in school than out)
you've ever brought books with you on vacation and actually studied.

Why God Never Received Tenure at any University
He had only one major publication.
It was in Hebrew.
It had no references.
It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
Some even doubt he wrote it himself.
It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample .
He rarely came to class, just told students to read the Book.
Some say he had his son teach the class.
He expelled his first two students for learning.
Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.
His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

Seminar Recap

My seminar and committee meetings yesterday went really well! I was nervous and talked too fast so I finished my 40ish minute presentation in just under 30 minutes-- but that was ok becuase my committee then decided that they would have my meeting right then. So instead of having to wait all afternoon-- it was over and done in just about an hour. The committee was happy with my progress and thought my presentation was great-- the only criticism I got was that I was talking too fast because I was nervous... so all in all good stuff there. My science and my explanations were plenty good. They said I should schedule my next one for the fall... so about 6 months-ish. I hope that means I am moving towards finishing-- the more often they want to see how you are progressing/wrapping up supposedly the better.

Yes, I am still alive.

I'm still here, just in survival mode until 4:30pm tomorrow. Then it will all be over. yippee.. but first I have to make it through til then. Seminar is at noon (til 1ish) then I am on a panel to convince younger grad students that it is all worth it and they can survive (HAHAHA... the irony) and then 3:30-4:30 is the meeting with the committee (insert scary music here) and then DONE. I may regain brain function by hrm.. maybe tuesday?

Keep your fingers crossed, sacrifice a toaster, pray whatever-- I will take any good karma that can come my way. (I really really don't like these things-- thank goodness they aren't too often)

Two quick meals

First up... I made Spinach Fettucini from scratch and it turned out quite well with a nice homemade alfredo sauce--- now if only the picture didn't look so lousy!

Last night I made the trout I had previously listed the recipe for. This time I mashed the capers a little with a mortar and pestle to break them up. I think that was a nice touch-- just lightly smash them so they split up a little. YUM. I could happily eat this trout every day! (Stupid pollution PCBs and Mercury--- oh well, to be cautious-- only one serving per week)

Thats it for cooking this week. Other than this I am working on the seminar of doom for Thursday and STILL trying to get that comforter to dry.

This Weekend~

On Friday, Craig and I went to Ellie's going away party. After a very rocky beginning 3 years earlier and an enlightening trip to Spain and France with 15 underclassmen, Ellie and I became friends and even roomates senior year and then a fabulous bridesmaid just a few months ago! I was very lucky that when I moved to Hershey, Ellie was working and living near by in Harrisburg- it gave a friend here from day one-- and one who knows great restaurants! Ellie has now recieved an absolutely amazing job offer-- but she has to move to Orlando--- so its time for her to move. Her going away party was at Appalachian Brew Company-- so Craig got some tasty beer (I had ale... ginger ale) and we snacked for a while and played some pool. Ellie had loads of guests, so we didn't get too much of a chance to talk-- so we're going out later this week for dinner so I can get all the news on her new job and home and all that! I am sad Ellie's leaving-- but she'll be back to visit (her parents live in Harrisburg) and she's said I can come visit her and Mickey anytime!

Saturday Craig and I drove up to Hazleton to visit Pappy. We went to the Park Diner(in Shenandoah?) for lunch-- the Park is somewhere if you drove by you would never never never ever go in. Its tiny and mismatched and kinda seedy looking -- its an old-time diner-- not in the cheesy recreate a diner that looks old-- it actually IS old. The food though is AMAZING. IT is run by a very nice couple and it has been in her family for years. They make the most wonderful rice pudding I have ever had-- and all the other food is pretty darn good too! When we go up to visit Pappy we usually eat there.

Sunday Craig did some more work on edging the gardens with brick and I washed out the comforter and hung it to dry (those things get VERY heavy when wet!) Other than that, I worked on the latest cake (the coconut cake recipe filled with vanilla pastry cream and fresh strawberries, topped with whipped cream for Kristin's (in my lab) birthday. I unfortunately do not have a picture of this cake-- we ate it too quickly! But I was told by my lab that this was their favorite of my cakes so far!

All I have to say is... blahhhhhhhh

Jumbo Buffet-- so good, so dangerous... too many options, have to eat them all. Time for the post-chinese buffet afternoon food-coma. At least its Friday. I may wake up in an hour.

There was peanut butter swirl ice cream-- if a force exists that would allow me to resist I would... but so good, so very good. mmmmmmm....

The end of an era

Nothing too exciting today to share, but I do have a couple of pictures from wings night last night.

We have decided that wings night at shakey's may be coming to an end after many years-- The prices go up... (ok, so 15cent wings is still phenomenal, but $1.50 for a little plastic cup of coors light is ridiculous) and now we can't even take home leftovers-- I mean, I can understand them not wanting you to order 50 wings and immediately pack them all up and leave-- but if the minimum order is 12 and I eat 6-- they now want me to throw the rest away?!?! That makes no sense at all. So here is a pic from one of the last wings nights and of Jackie's creative "container". Have no fear-- we are still getting together, we just figured we can get better beer and all for the same or less if we all kick in $5 a week and take turns having it at peoples houses. We'll all be better off for the lack of smoke and loud lousy music. So if you have any good wings recipes, let me know! (I only know what I remember from working at McCoy's-- deep fried drive-in goodness coated in "butter-like substance" mixed with Frank's red-hot.)

A timeline?

A couple people have asked me about a timeline for the whole "when will we see a grandbaby/niece/nephew/cute baby I can borrow/girl so I can get it dresses like this really cute one I saw at this store.../boy so he can use stored up clothing/little mathers" thing?

I can't give a really clear timeline, life doesn't work that way!-- so that's out.

I hope to have a clearer picture after next Thursday about how much longer I will be in school and doing lab work etc-- and from there I may develop more of a timeline-- but for now, what Craig and I have discussed is anything from this point on is good-- I have the health stuff cleared up and yes mom, I am on folic acid-- so that's all set. I think ideally we are figuring mid to late summer and then--- well, last time I checked its 9ish or so months til they're ready. This of course assumes that things go normally and work out from the beginning and that one is all up to God, not us. So I guess in happy fantasy land-- we'll have grown a family in the next year or so-- but who knows what tomorrow will bring. All that "the best laid plans of mice and men" stuff-- and I for one know plans don't turn out so well for most mice!

Low-fat Double Chocolate Brownies-- that don't suck!

'Light' Double Chocolate Brownies (adapted from Devin Alexander)

Ingredients
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (used good double strength vanilla)
4 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (yes, really... only 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder ( I used normal Hershey's, will try next time with special dark)
1.5 teaspoon instant coffee granules (Maxwell House)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (or a little more)
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (semi-sweet)
cooking spray


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Spray an 8x8 inch pyrex pan with spray.
In a medium mixing bowl, using a sturdy whisk or spatula, mix the applesauce, vanilla, egg whites, coffee granules, and sugar until they are well combined/dissolved. (you can use the mixer here-- why make life more difficult)
Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.
Stir the mixture until it is just combined and no lumps remain.
Pour it into the prepared pan.
Sprinkle the chips evenly over the top.
Bake the brownies for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry (a few crumbs are okay).
WARNING-- Brownies will puff, a lot, a whole lot. Fill the pan kind of puff. When you pull them out of the oven, they will fall-- this is good. That's what makes them dense and moist.
Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and allow them to cool 5 minutes. (AT LEAST- will be very very very soft-- can seem almost liquid when you cut them)
Brownies will be very sticky-- I placed them on flattened paper cupcake cups and brought them to work that way. They stick to the plate pretty badly and you won't get them back off without a fight. (and then you have to eat the crumbs)
Cut into 12 equal brownies. Makes 12 (1 brownie) servings.

Each brownie has: only 88 calories, 2 g protein, 19 g carbohydrates, 1 g fat, less than 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber, 133 mg sodium

Review--
These are pretty good-- they are not a "chewy" brownie-- but they have a great chocolate flavor. I was impressed with that. These will definitely satisfy a chocolate craving. All in all-- I would make these again for a moist chocolate dessert-- its almost a brownie, but just lacks a little bit of chewiness/crustiness-- but I am the person who likes the corner extra chewy brownie best of all. I would definitely recommend them when trying to be more cautious about what you eat-- and I might even make them if I weren't.

Oh, and now I have egg yolks left over to make some lemon curd, yum.

A little bit of landscaping.

This weekend I did my best to procrastinante a little more and not work on my seminar-- ok, so I worked on it some... and I have a week yet.. so I will be ok.

On Saturday my friend Leah and I drove down to King of Prussia for the day. She'd never been and it seemed like a good way to spend the day-- so off we went. I managed to get a little bit of new makeup. I really like this bare minerals stuff-- it doesn't seem to set off my acne and it is pretty much idiot proof to put on, so a great combination for me! So I picked out a new eyeshadow ( a glittery green called "envy") and a new blush called glee. Yay. Meanwhile Craig and Mike (Leah's fiance) went to see Spiderman 3, they gave it pretty bad reviews. We all went to dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill afterwards and they make really wonderful bread! We topped it off with a walk to Maggie Moo's -- YUM, seriously wonderful ice cream. I got carrot cake ice cream with teddy grahms mixed in- DELICIOUS!

Today we got a little bit of landscaping done-- so here are some pictures!

Craig pulled out the plastic edging I had in and built me a lovely brick-- this should keep the grass out of my flower beds and make it easier for him to mow right up next to them. Plus it looks great!

Here are some normal grape hyacinths I have planted.

And here are my mutant purple cauliflower hyacinths. I have no idea what happened. About 1/3 of my grape hyacinths came up looking like this! They still smell lovely and are a pretty color- they are just pretty weird looking!

This it the back of our garage (the side that faces our house). We planted the lilacs (the tall shrubs) and the burning bushes (the short shrubs) and a handful of white mums (the tiny shrubs in front of the bushes) last year. Today we added the trellis and a clematis to help conceal the ugly grey electrical conduit we had to have to get electricity in the garage. Here's hoping it works-- if nothing else though, I am thrilled that the $1.50 salvaged clearance lilacs from lowes are looking perfect!


This time we found a great tree in the clearance stash at Lowe's-- A Japanese Red Maple. We'd been looking for some sort of "small" decorative tree for the front yard, and there it was! We put it in much to the amusement of our old lady neighbors who thought it was very very funny to be planting a tree (I have no idea.. they are out on their porch all day, I think maybe they were laughing at Murphy trying to "help") So we now have a new tiny tree in our yard. Hopefully it makes it, but in the worst of cases, it was only $3-- so we can't complain too much! The grass is all brown patchy because we were patching the sod with parts we dug up. The Murph does a number on the grass-- I think he must pee straight hydrochloric acid or something. Anyway, we took advantage of the healthy grass we had to dig up to patch a bunch of bad spots in the yard.

That was our weekend, off to try out a new recipe. I will share if it is any good!

Grad Student Humor because I am beyond stressed.

Both of these pics are borrowed from phdcomics.com and are here simply to try and translate grad school to those of you not suffering through it. (its a bad week) Click on the pictures to get better resolution ones from the actual website.

I have my massive yearly meeting-- the committee meeting in less than 2 weeks... I know I have gotten work done in the past year since the last one, but that means nothing if they don't think so. These are the people who decide when I get to go free and how much longer I get to work at slave labor-- ugh and who take their delight in making grad students remember that we really don't know as much as we think we do. This is nerve-wracking. Plus I have to put together an hour long seminar that covers everything I have done that worked or not and what I am going to do next and then start the desperate pleading to let me out sooner rather than later... ugh. Not looking forward to the next 2 weeks. I have to give my first draft of the presentation for my lab meeting on Tuesday-- and I don't even have all the data collected yet (not my fault-- histology took too long to process the samples) blah... this is not fun and this is the point every year where I start wondering why the heck I thought grad school was a good idea anyways-- who in their right mind signs up for this?!?!?!

Ugh- just stressed and annoyed and thinking I should just go be a cake baker for a living.

This is what I am hungry for... sadly, not making this tonight.

This nukes really well-- so good. Left over rice is good for rice pudding or if you make the creamy coconut rice, then it is good with some sliced mango and a little bit of coconut cream drizzled in the rice.

Thai Basil Chicken

Adapted from this recipe.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups uncooked jasmine rice -- cook according to package directions-- you can add a little extra coconut milk to the rice while it cooks for creamier more tasty rice-- plus it will use up the leftovers from the can of coconut milk)

3/4 cup coconut milk
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (yes, it looks and smells scary-- but its good in the recipe)
3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (I go a little less-- I am a wuss on spicy)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced (I use a standard yellow one)
2 tablespoons fresh ginger root, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced (or more)
2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1/2 inch strips (or little chunks or whatever)
1/2 lb white mushrooms, sliced
5 green onions, chopped (or more-- chop the white and a little green too-- thin chop)
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh basil leaves ( I never manage to get this much-- I would say I average 1/2 cup fresh basil tops)

DIRECTIONS
Bring rice and water to a boil in a pot.

Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes.
In a bowl, mix the coconut milk, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, and red pepper flakes.
In a skillet or wok, heat the oil over medium-high heat.

Stir in the onion, ginger, and garlic, and cook until lightly browned.

Mix in chicken strips, and cook about 3 minutes, until browned.

Stir in the coconut milk sauce and sliced mushrooms.

Continue cooking until sauce is reduced be about 1/3 and mushrooms are tender.

Mix in green onions and basil, and cook until heated through.

Serve over the cooked rice.

I usually halve the chicken part-- and still make as much sauce-- I like sauce-y rice meals.

Bring on the Thin Mints! But not for Tiki and Murphy

No trans-fats in thin mints anymore!
Gobble down those Girl Scout cookies.... they no longer contain any trans-fats. Plus they are delicious! (mmm... thin mints-- I keep them in the freezer all the time-- yum)
You can read a little more here.

But-- keep them to yourself, your cat won't appreciate them anyway.

It turns out cats are not able to taste sweets.
"Whether as a result of this dietary choice or the cause of it, all cats—lions, tigers and British longhairs, oh my—lack 247 base pairs of the amino acids that make up the DNA of the Tas1r2 gene. As a result, it does not code for the proper protein, it does not merit the name gene (only pseudogene), and it does not permit cats to taste sweets. "They don't taste sweet the way we do," says Joe Brand, biochemist and associate director at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. "They're lucky. Cats really have bad teeth as it is.""


And no thin mints for the Murph-inator either... Even though he would love them-- this article gives me a good excuse not to share!

" Dogs and humans have similar tastes. Like us, they seek out sweets and have no problem indulging. But unlike humans, our canine companions experience dangerous effects from eating chocolate—it can poison them and in some cases is lethal. The hazard, however, is probably overblown, says Tim Hackett, a veterinarian at Colorado State University. Chocolate's danger to dogs depends on its quantity and quality. Large dogs can usually handle a small amount of chocolate whereas the same helping could cause problems for ... his pint-size kin. "



And based on this morning, house flies must not be sweet-- tiki spent the night chasing a big fly around the house "hunting". She finally had it this morning as a light snack-- it was pretty darn funny watching her--- one of these days I need to video her on the hunt!

Green light...

Well... I had my doc appt today (well, the nurse practitioner-- close enough) and I seem to be all set.

I was told not to drink (no duh) and to make sure I get enough protein (like eating meat has EVER been a hardship for me) and to start taking some sort of prenatal vitamin that has at least 1mg Folic acid-- easy enough. My BP and all that was in good order and she had no comments on the weight thing other than to be sure that I was eating healthy-- and I do alright with that, so yay!

Thankfully I am all up to date on the vaccine front-- no more shots for a bit. Though I will say, this last tetanus one was not as miserable as the last one... I was sore for 4 days, but really only annoyingly so for about 24 hrs-- a definite improvement. She asked if wanted the Gardasil-- but my insurance doesn't cover it (its over $300 for the shots) and I am a married woman in a monogamous relationship so its really not an issue. So she said I could do it if I strongly wanted it, but saw no real reason to recommend it-- so I will not be doing that. I think I want to watch a little longer on follow up studies before I sign up for that one. (We started the research for that vaccine right here over 20 years ago in the Gittlen Institute-- its actually the project the whole department was founded around!)

So she told me to come on in for the next round if I miss a period and wished me luck... so one more hurdle down! I still want to try and lose another 10ish pounds-- but I am halfway to my goal-- so all in all-- that doesn't look too bad either!