Sunday, August 19, 2012

Week(s) recap

Has it been two weeks already?
Two weekends ago, we got the bread maker out and used it to make pizza dough for some homemade pizza.

Last week, I was in North Carolina for a workshop. My friend and co-mentor Jennifer showed me around her Alma mater of UNC. It was fun hearing stories from her college years, meeting her friends, and eating and drinking at her favorite spots. One of the things that I was really excited about was a Late Blossom, whose main ingredient is lychee, my favorite fruit. Unfortunately, you can only find canned lychees in the US, but I will take that any day over none :)

I got back on Friday with a cold, so the weekend was spent recovering. I did manage to meet up with Zak for part of his farewell night, joining the group at Dreamland's only, as the rest of them continued on for drinks at the Summit and a movie.

Earlier this week, I also got a stomach bug or maybe I was reacting to the medicine I had been taking. But on the bright side, our garden has been producing some veggies. We are looking forward to the jalapeno peppers to being ready. I already have the pickling recipe. We are also enjoying the rain this week. I love waking up to rain or sipping tea while watching the rain. Plus, it makes it cooler and I bet the plants are enjoying a nice break from the summer heat.

After talking with Laurie, it finally hit me that it will be a bit cooler in Alaska and the dress that I was planning on wearing to the wedding might not be warm enough. So yesterday I went on a bargain shopping spree and found a nice purple dress. Later that day, Tom and I went to the mall to find him a purple tie. We are weirdly cute in that we try to coordinate my dress and his tie when we play dress up. Afterwards, we had an impromptu dinner date at Billy's. I had the Absolute Stress cocktail, which was very relaxing. We sat in a nice nook and watched the rain as we enjoyed our food. If you've never had fried olives, please try them at Billy's. They were yummy!

My parents also hosted my sister's engagement party back home yesterday. According to their reports, it went without a hitch. I wish I could be there. They have set their wedding date for August 2013. This means that we'll be heading there at that time (and will have our Mauritian wedding then too). We hope that family and friends will be able to join us. 

Today is a day of chores.

I hope your weekend is going well!

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Week in recap

As I mentioned in my previous post, we submitted the green card residency application. This was a bit of an ordeal between having passport pictures taken, having a medical exam done by a civil surgeon (can't use your regular doctor, and it's not covered by insurance, but I'm glad to report that I have all the immunizations needed for my age group but do not have tuberculosis, syphillis, a mental disorder, or a drug abuse problem), filling out several forms, and reading even more pages of instructions. I have to say that the International office at UAB was very helpful. If everything goes well, I'll be getting a travel card in the next six weeks, which means that I can travel internationally again. Then in about four months, Tom and I will have to go to Atlanta for an interview where the interviewer will ask questions to make sure that our wedding is not a sham.
Okay, other things happening this past week:
Garden: we have one fully grown jalapeno pepper! Finally! We have a few baby peppers that we are monitoring. We are waiting for about10 grape tomatoes to ripen. Our Marigolds (started from seeds) are officially dead. Tom will have to keep up with the watering schedule.
We have a new wreath:
Beads on the left, Mauritian Flag;  beads on the right, USA's flag.

The lab went to lunch with Jennifer for her birthday. We had a somewhat of a surprise dessert session afterwards (strawberry cupcakes and peanut butter pie).
Dessert/eating out + a pinched sciatic nerve = no exercise = weighing scale disaster
Work picked up quite considerably as in the span of two days, we found out that I had to analyze ~1000 patient samples and since I'm out next week at UNC, I'll have about 10 days to run them! yikes!
We are trying to make a catering decision for the wedding reception. We haven't found one place that has the best of everything. For example, Dreamland's meat is unmatched to Jim n Nicks, but JnN has the better sides. Dreamland also has a killer banana pudding. We might have to get creative. 
And finally, we have kicked off Zak's going away parties. Zak is leaving Birmingham for Boston, where he'll start law school at Northeastern. There are so many unanswered questions: what will happen at Thanksgiving? Or any holiday party? What about football season? Who will be Tom's partner in crime for Fourth of July shenanigans? One thing is for sure, we will miss you! Last night, we went to On Tap in Hoover for pregame drinks, and then to Regions Park to watch the Barons Baseball game.


I had ice cream served in a baseball hat cup - I chose the A's because it was the least offensive to the guys (Tom hates the Yankees while Zak is a fan, wasn't sure about the Orioles, and both Tom and Zak hate the Cubs, White Sox, and Phillies).
It was also Pyro-palooza. The show was put on by the same guys who do our fourth of July fireworks show over the mountain.










Look at them with their matching red polos! We will miss you Zak!



Friday, August 3, 2012

Oh August!

For August, I'm
Excited:  about upcoming trips
Worried: about our green card application
Watching: The Olympics
Reading: The newspaper, magazines, e-books
Listening to: nothing in particular
Creating:  jewelry, or thinking about them
Cooking: everything
Loving: the Olympics 
Hoping: that the residency stuff is fine
Looking forward to: having the option to travel internationally if we wanted to, in about 6 weeks