New Stamp

A friend of ours graduated today with a Ph.D. in Soil Science.

Congrats to Dr. Robins!

Now that the majority of my work is done (just need to do some grading), I had the free time to make a card for him. I used a new stamp that I ordered from 'Paper Pretties.'

Holy Mackerel! Congratulations!

End of the Semester Craziness!

There are 23 days left until the semester is over, and it feels like I'm swimming towards a shore but I'm not getting anywhere. Each week, more gets crossed off the To Do List, but there's always so much more to do!

Here's what I'm dealing with. (Not trying to complain, just need to get it off my chest. The person I generally vent to is out in the field somewhere camping and digging soil pits)

[x] Practice poster for Geosymposium
[x] Contaminant Hydro paper on Acid Mine Drainage
[x] Revise students' policy letter rough drafts
[x] Form my thesis committee
[x] Get committee to sign paperwork
[x] Schedule my Thesis Proposal Presentation for my committee
[x] Final poster for Geosymposium
[x] Presentation on Acid Mine Drainage
[x] GPSA Fall Grant Application
[x] Geosymposium
[x] Aqueous Geochemistry homework
[x] Revise and complete Thesis Proposal
[x] Get the completed Thesis Proposal to my committee
[x] Grade students' final drafts and normal homework
[x] Figure out students' final grades
[x] Run olivine dissolution models for Aqueous Geochemistry
[x] Write paper on olivine dissolution model
[x] Prepare presentation on olivine dissolution model
[x] Finalize dates and other info for summer field work
[x] Survive my Thesis Proposal Presentation
[ ] Get all thesis proposal-related paperwork turned in

Holy buckets. I needed to get that out, but... that's a lot!

To end things on a positive note, here are some SEM images that I took in the lab last week (of my olivine samples) that reminded me of a doggy and a frog. Does anyone else see a resemblance?


Note: I may occasionally cross more things off my list as they happen. Might not keep up though. We'll see.

I Love Little Surprises (the tree outside blooms!)

"Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning."

~ Lydia M. Child

Strawberry Bellini

I'm very glad to be living near a large city with a multitude of restaurants as opposed to living in a rural town with about 5 different food options. However, with that said, we have yet to find a replacement for Bella Cucina. Sure, we found an Italian restaurant that had great food, but it's part of a chain and they don't have my favorite dish (fettuccine fra di avilo) or my favorite drink to order (other than a cosmopolitan), a strawberry bellini.

Well, Erik and I are still working on perfecting the fettuccine dish, but we mastered the bellini! We were shopping at Costco the other day and came across the giant container of strawberries, when I suggested that we try making daiquiris, or better yet, strawberry bellinis!

Next came the quest to purchase champagne that would both be affordable, but not taste gross. After wandering the bubbly aisle for quite some time at the liquor store, I was about to pick a very cheap kind of champagne (after all, it was just going to be mixed in--it's not like we'd be drinking it by itself), when a bottle with a light blue label caught my eye.

My thought process: "THEY MAKE MOSCATO SPARKLING WINE?!?!?!?!?! We are so buying this one!" (In September, we discovered moscato and it has been my favorite type of wine ever since) Another plus, the bottle cost less than $10. We had a winner.

Here was the delicious result:

1 tray of ice cubes
2 oz. white rum
4 cups of strawberries (!)
2 spoonfuls of sugar
1/2 bottle of champagne

Mix in a blender, and enjoy. :)

"Treatsa Pizza" or Grasshopper Pie

This is probably one of my favorite desserts ever. Seriously. It's the oreo cookie crust that gets me (I always save the crust for last!)

It was Erik's 23rd birthday yesterday, and this is what he chose for his birthday dessert. I gave him a choice between my Grandma B's chocolate cake and this ice cream dessert. I love both of the choices, but he'd never had this one before.

Here's the cupcake version of the dessert (I made a pie-sized dessert too, but there were some leftover ingredients, so I made mini pies/pizzas in a muffin pan).


Oreo cookie crust. Mint chocolate chip ice cream. Homemade fudge sauce.

Delicious.

3 for Valentine's, 3 for Birthdays

I've made a few cards recently, but waited to post them so that the post office could do it's thing and get these off to the recipients before I went and ruined the surprise on here. I've been following the blog Mojo Monday which posts sketches or templates of cards. I love them!!! I really like making cards, but I've always struggled a wee bit with coming up with things to do with the papers and layers and such. These are also some of the first cards where I've tried using ribbon successfully. :)

"Manly" version of a Valentine's Day card, for my sweetie

Valentine's Card (red edition)

Valentine's Card (pink edition)

For my uncle's 55th birthday

For my grandma's 80th birthday

For Kelsey's birthday

Yay for (so far) keeping with my goal of not purchasing greeting cards, but making them!

Valentine's Day

I think I got more excited for Valentine's Day when I was a little kid. You'd get to to go the store and pick out a box of little Valentine cards for all of your friends at school (favorites of mine included Powerpuff Girls, Star Wars, and Kittens), and of course some candy too (Sweethearts, anyone?). At school, you'd get to decorate a brown lunch bag which would become your desk's mailbox for candy and cards from your classmates. And no one was left out, because the rule was if you were going to bring Valentine cards or candy to school, you had to have enough for the whole class. It was always one of the best days of school, ever. I mean, who doesn't like less time for class and more time for candy and fun?

Now you just see a ton of commercials telling you to spend $60+ on long-stemmed roses (when you could just wait until summer and get 20 beautiful roses for $10 at the Farmer's Market), ridiculous jewelry that's supposed to look like it's hugging something, or having to pay an arm and a leg to go see the new romantic comedy at the movie theater. Oiy... I liked when things were simpler and only about $5 total cost for the day.

Well, given that my boyfriend and I like simple things, we're going to have a pretty laid-back day, which I am looking forward to very much.

Tentative Schedule:

• Heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast. Although, they turned out nothing like those in the photo. Mine were free-handed and ended up looking like asymmetrical blobs.
• A walk to the park (hopefully there are doggies in the dog park for us to watch!).
• Prepare the slow cooker for a tasty pork chop dinner.
• Go feed and play with Milo (a very poofy orange kitty).
• Pick up delicious cupcakes at the Cupcakery. (This is our one splurge for the day)
• Have delicious dinner, wine, and cupcakes!

Photo: http://www.more4kids.info/613/valentine-treats-for-kids/

Milk... doesn't always do a body good.

Last night I realized that we still had a lot of milk left to drink. Not wanting to drink it just for the sake of drinking milk, I thought that milk and oreos would be a tasty treat for dessert.

It's a good thing that I looked at the expiration date on the milk first (2/02/10). Being very disappointed that I could no longer have oreos and milk, I dumped out the expired milk. Erik noticed my mopey-ness about not getting to have oreos and very sweetly offered to go to the gas station across the street and buy me some more milk.

He got back, gave me the milk and I was very excited to have my dessert treat. But, the milk tasted a bit funny. Not having had milk out of a cardboard carton in a while, I thought that perhaps this was why it tasted different. Besides, I couldn't even taste the weirdness all that much when I just dunked the oreo in it.

This morning: I awoke much, much earlier than normal with a very upset stomach.

Morals of the story:

1. Don't trust gas station milk.
2. Don't continue to drink said milk after you decide it tastes funny.
3. Do go to a real grocery store to buy new milk when you realize yours is expired.
4. Give up on the idea of oreos and milk when you realize your milk is expired, because fate has already decided that for some reason you are meant to drink funky milk and get sick.

The end.

Photo: http://thedesouzafamily.blogspot.com/2008/01/oreos.html

Campfires

"The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness."
~Henry David Thoreau

As soon as I manage to get a tent, I'm going to plan a camping trip. Or maybe, as soon as I plan a camping trip, I'll get a tent. All I know is that Zion, Arches, Death Valley, and the Grand Canyon are all within a decent driving distance, and I want to go camping!

Football for Breakfast?

Living in the Pacific Standard Time zone after living in the Midwest my entire life has taken a little bit to get used to. I have to remember that I can't call my friends and family back home at night because they're probably asleep (and likewise, some of them need to remember to not call/text me in the morning, because it's much earlier here!) Evening TV shows and the news are on later at night. Facebook statuses of people from the East Coast/Midwest often contain spoilers for said shows that air later at night here.

And then there's football. Occasionally we are lucky enough here for the Vikings game to air on our local station. But rather than watching a noon (or afternoon) football game complete with soda (or beer) and chips, salsa, and other tasty snack food, given the time difference, we get to watch the Vikings game starting at 10:00 a.m.


So rather than those tasty, salty football snacks, we have cinnamon rolls and coffee. It's still yummy, but it feels odd.


Photo 1: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ries/snack-food-football-stadium-6y
Photo 2: http://stlmagblogs.typepad.com/feast/2010/01/coffee-and-a-pastry-atpi.html