Vacation time - weeks 4 and 5

Week 4 started off poorly, with LSU losing the national championship on Monday. But with the arrival of my sister, I was very much insulated from all the hype in the city about the Crimson Tide win. Football wise, it was a terrible week, with LSU, the Saints, and the Packers all losing this week.
Payal arrived on Tuesday night. Our daily ritual was to have breakfast together, get ready, go shopping, eat lunch out, shop some more, take a nap, eat out for dinner, drink plenty of tea.
During Payal's visit, I tried new restaurants: Silver Coin Indian Grill for girls night out, John's City Diner for lunch on Friday, and Over Easy for brunch on Saturday. Silver Coin and John's were very tasty! Over Easy, I found, was over-rated. Payal had given me a list of things she wanted to eat: Indian food (hence Silver Coin), red velvet cupcakes (obliged by Urban Standard and made a batch at home), and steak (Tom did a wonderful job, as expected!). I felt that she had to try BBQ (Jim n Nicks), Mexican food (Acapulco), Cajun food although she had it in Louisiana when she last visited. We went to Crazy Cajuns, she had the oyster poboy and did not like it. To be fair, Crazy Cajuns is very hit or miss, and this time, it was more miss than hit. We had cocktails at the Blue Monkey and mimosas on Sunday. At some point during our fantastic week, we went to the bridal place. No purchases yet.

@ Silver Coin

@ Acapulco

I hope you had fun Sis! Love you and will miss you!

The beginning of Week 5 - MLK day was spent doing laundry. Tonight I was at lab until 8:30 pm, and I find out tomorrow whether my experiment worked. So week 5 will be busy with work.
Tasty Tuesday: this week we are finding creative ways to use brats. One thing that I will try is a beer mac and cheese. The noodles are cooked in beer, the cheese sauce is a beer cheese sauce, and it's topped with brats. Not healthy, but it's oh so good! I had it in Green Bay at Curly's Pub at Lambeau field.

Resolutions

2012 resolutions... hmm... Not much change from last year.
1. While waiting for our flight from Minneapolis to Birmingham, Tom and I grabbed a beer. And a napkin. And a pen. We scribbled a few numbers down for our savings goal for this year. We have the Alaskan trip plus any emergency travel if needs be. Oh yea, there's the wedding next year. We'll try to live off one salary or as close to it as possible. We need to get a (better) handle on our weekly grocery budget too.
   Subpart 1. When possible, I want to buy products that are Made in America, and support local businesses. We are considering joining a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm.
   Subpart 2. I follow a few couponing blogs. I think that if I can get items for free that I wouldn't use but that a soup kitchen/shelter will, I might just pick those items and donate them. 
2. Be healthy. We both need to get in shape or better shape.
3. Travel. I need three new places to visit this year. Technically only 1, since we went to Green Bay on Jan 1 but I counted that for last year's goal. Fairbanks is in the works. I'll see where my parents want to go when they come here in May.
4. Craft more. I have a lot of projects that I want to try out. Maybe try a Pinterest Challenge?
5. Making a new recipe each month. Also, I'm excited about April, which is National Grilled Cheese Month. Grilled cheese has become a staple at the house, so I want to experiment with making a new kind every week during the month of April.
6. Get the garden back. Two weeks of not tending to our garden means that everything is dead or dying. So more gardening is due.


Let's see if I'll be better about my resolutions this year.

Vacation time

The line between work and vacation has become increasing blurry. From the time I defended until I start my new position, we'll say that I have 6 weeks of "vacation".
In Week 1, I had to review a manuscript - which was such an awesome experience. Plus Dr. P offered guidance on how to review manuscripts.
I also started to work on a review paper that focuses on my next area of research/next lab. I'm getting used to the lingo.

In between these assignments, I spent some time in Austin. Here is my niece (cousin's daugher), who likes cadeaux (gifts in French) but as mentioned in another post, amazes me at her language skills (English, French and German).

I left the big state of Texas on December 25, headed towards the dairy heaven of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Here we are, with Tom's parents, at Buzzard Billy's, which has better Cajun food than Birmingham. This is my must-go place when in La Crosse.

Not much work was done in Week 2. Tom, Laurie (Tom's mom) and I went to a Packer game on January 1 in Green Bay. Tom bought us tickets as his Christmas gift.  Kick off temperature was 35 F. It snowed during the fourth quarter, quite heavily at times. I wore ski pants for the first time. It was great to see Matt Flynn (former LSU player) to play the entire game and set new records for the team.

We headed back to La Crosse on Jan 2, and watched more football from the cozy family room complete with a fireplace. I had a great time in Texas and Wisconsin.
Now begins Week 3. We got back to Birmingham late Wednesday night. I have to wrap up a few experiments, including an 18-hour one. Plus shopping. Plus cleaning, everything, from vents to baseboards. Ooohh, and a much anticipated game on Monday night.
Week 4 will be marked by the arrival of my sister! woot woot!
Week 5 will be rushed to finish the review.
Week 6 will probably involve huge to do list, cleaning and organizing. Did I mention that during weeks 1-3, I have been jotting down/drawing new house projects? More on this later.

2011 in review

Lots happened in 2011. Here's a recap:
The Packers won the Superbowl
I attended my first Gordon conference
Got engaged
Got a PhD
Saw my first game at Lambeau
Saw my niece - the last time that I saw her she was 6 months old. I was at her 3 year old birthday parties (yes, she had two parties). The world is her oyster, she already speaks English, French and German
Visited with my out-of-town BFFs: Laura in Dallas (need to visit her and the triplets soon), Grace came to Boston, Susie Beth came to Birmingham
Visited La Crosse family and friends
Was away from the lab for two weeks

On the goals from last year:
1. No fast food: we cheated on this a few times especially during defense week.
2. Lose weight: still holding steady at -20. I managed to only put on 1 lb during the holidays - I don't know how, since I remember eating all the time while on vacation.
3. Eat out only once a week: on average, this worked.
4. Save money: yup, this worked.
5. Travel: visited two new states, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Three towns if we count Green Bay on Jan 1.
6. Be more social: I think this worked.
7. Become a domestic goddess: by the state of my garden and my long to-do list, this doesn't seem to have worked. But I have made some major steps in that direction, and continue to love being creative and adventurous in the kitchen.

Next post will have pictures of the holidays, and our new resolutions.

Hope that you had a great year, and that 2012 will be even better.

Happy Holidays, y'all

Our Christmas tree is up. Not as spectacular as previous years given our time commitments, but I still love it.

 Oh yes, Bandit Bear Monkey and Bucky Jingle Bells Bear are hanging out in the tree.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to start our holiday traditions this year. Those included:
1. Get one new ornament every year.
2. Choose a color theme (this year was green and gold/yellow). We wanted to get new mini-lights and generally more green ornaments.
3. We also didn't open gifts this year, but we want to have a dedicated gift opening night with a nice meal and our favorite (and cheap) wine, Electric Reindeer.

I also saw a very nice decoration which involves hanging ornaments from a curtain rod that I wanted to do, but that didn't happen this year. But I have hopes that it will next year :)

Cards sent, gifts sent, all is good in the Ham.

Best wishes for a happy and safe holiday season!

Random December things

Week leading to the big day:  Working on the presentation. A two-screen system really helped me, I could have several files opened at once and keep track of several things.

My audience while rehearsing, in order of decreasing size, Napoleon Buggle Bear, Tommy Blue Bear, Mike Gummy Bear Tiger, and Bandit Bear Monkey.

December 16, after the big day: my labmate Paula and I at J. Clyde.

December 17: Tom baked a wonderful loaf and made some french onion soup

December 18: went to my department's holiday party, and then came home and baked cookies for the out-of-town BFFs. This year, we did white chocolate chips and coconut cookies and butterscotch oatmeal cookies. I also made a batch of pecan pralines.

Oh what fun it is to...

be Ph.inishe.D :)

I had my defense yesterday, and my parents were able to participate via Skype. It's amazing what technology can do.
We celebrated starting at 4:30 pm at the J. Clyde with Paula, then Tom joined, and gradually our friends joined in the fun too. We had such a blast!
Today has been a day on the couch even though I have so much stuff to do. Main reason: we got home at around 2 am (we were responsible to walk home from the bar). At 5 am I woke up and heard running water. I remembered in my half-asleep state that neither the dishwasher nor the washer was running, and wondered if we had left the tap on in the kitchen. Oh no, we didn't. The water inlet hose/pipe that connects to the freezer for the ice maker broke, and there was at least an inch of water in our flooded kitchen! Years of dealing with this stuff in Student Housing had me react - turn the water off and then call someone (in that case, I shouted from the kitchen to wake up Tom, who called the landlord). We used about a dozen bath towels, which didn't even make a dent in mopping the water. Fortunately the landlord came within 20 minutes of the call and brought his wet vac. Two hours later, no more standing water and we went back to bed.

Fortunately, we have a washer and a dryer in the house, so today Tom was washing towels, while I was recuperating (I may have had one too many beers). Fortunately, there's a stump in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Otherwise our living room would have been flooded and our electronics would have been fried. Fortunately, I woke up when I did - this would have been a disaster if it had happened when we were at work or out of town. Fortunately, our landlord lives next door and he had a wet vac (and he also came to fix the pipe in the afternoon). While it was bad, it could have been worse, a lot worse.

Sunday Deals

A few months ago, I received $10 in Groupon bucks for a referral, and a couple of weeks ago, I used the credit to get a $20 Old Navy Groupon. I had a few items on my wishlist (jeans, shirts, scarves, shoes, etc..), so I figure I would use this Groupon.
Today I went to Old Navy and noticed that some of their layering tees were on sale for $4 and $5 each! So I bought 5 shirts, paid $1.99 and saved a little over $70. It was a good Sunday. A good example of how patience pays off :)

Tasty Tuesday

It's been a while since I posted pictures from the kitchen:
I'm gradually replacing our reusable containers to glass or BPA-free plastics and I had been looking for easy to-go containers for yogurt cups (yogurt, add fruit of choice, add honey if desired; is cheaper, more healthy since you control more of the ingredients, and less waste as opposed to individual small yogurt containers). I couldn't find something that I liked, until I checked Babies R Us when I was picking diapers and other things for gifts and found baby food containers. So now, we can pack our own yogurt cups. We've also used them for breakfast: grits!! I like mine with cheese, T with jam. Pack an apple and out the door.

Sparkpeople inspired: I like inspired, since I don't always follow the recipes exactly. I guess that's me rebelling against the constraints of science experiments where you have to be exact all the time. Plus, I don't always have all the ingredients. I made their salmon burgers accompanied with roasted carrots, potatoes, and asparagus (dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper), and served with a lime wedge and a dill pickle.

No photos for these two:
Pad Thai noodles (recipe said to use tofu, but we had leftover pork from Thanksgiving - see below -; I didn't have tamarind paste, so I used extra lime juice and extra peanut butter)
Slow cooker chicken marinara - I added 2 chopped carrots and 1 red pepper to the recipe since they were not going to last much longer, and didn't have zucchini. The first night we had it with whole grain penne pasta, second day with toast, and third day with Ramen noodles. As weird as it sounds, most Mauritians love Ramen noodles (which we call Apollo), and we cook the noodles with a bunch of veggies, leftover chicken, shrimps, eggs, etc...

Thanksgiving:
We went to our friend's place for a potluck meal(s) and watched the Packers play. Tom and I brought:

Cajun stuffing (cornbread stuffing with andouille sausage). I adapted my usual recipe for the slow cooker. It didn't have that crunch that you get from baking, but it was still yummy. It couldn't all fit in the slow cooker, so I baked whatever couldn't fit in the oven and stored it for future use.
We made a yummy sweet potato casserole that was topped with walnuts and brown sugar rather than marshmallows (no pictures).
We brought a baked brie - lessons learned: do not shop in a hurry (bought pie crust instead of puff pastry! d'oh!); do not attempt to modify this recipe (topped the brie with brown sugar and walnuts, and waited for the sugar to melt at 350 deg F, which didn't happen and we got to the party late); do not put this under the broiler (I looked at someone to say hi, and the moment that I looked away, the nuts got charred!). I scrapped the burnt nuts and people still ate a lot of it. Next time, I'm following the recipe.

 Tom made a tequila lime roasted pork loin, which was fantastic!

 

We also brought these goodies: baked croissants but stuffed with cream cheese, jalapenos, and bacon. Thanks Pinterest!  Basically a jalapeno popper in a croissant! It was glorious, especially since all the jalapenos came from the garden!

Other kitchen happenings:

Last week, Ms. Paula came back from a 10 day trip to Europe. I had a bunch of apples that were not going to last for very long (and I had pie crust from Thanksgiving) so I baked my first apple pie for her. I still need to work on my pastry decoration. I made it one morning before going to lab - it didn't take that long once the apples are peeled and sliced. Bake while getting ready. Allow to cool while listening to tales of Europe! What a Friday! :)

It has gotten much cooler and this past weekend, I decided that our jalapenos were not going to get any bigger. I harvested all of them and pickled them following this recipe, omitting the bay leaves, using regular black peppercorns, using chopped garlic instead of crushed, and replacing apple cider vinegar with white vinegar. Cooled, labelled, and in the fridge. We have yet to try them.

Shopping Saturday

I sent my dissertation to my committee yesterday afternoon, and so today I'm taking a break, sorta. I went on a 3 hour shopping trip, and found some good deals.
1.Target: Tom had Uncharted 3 on his Xmas wishlist. It was on sale for $49.99. I had a coupon, get a $10 Target gift card when you spend $50. Maybe we will use the gift card for Xmas decorations or just groceries.
2. Academy Sports: I got some super comfy snow boots for Wisconsin. They were on sale too.
3. CVS: I had $5 in ECB to use by Monday. While making apple pie yesterday for Paula (more on this on Tuesday), I noticed that I had less than 1/2 cup of sugar left. So last night I checked the CVS ad, and saw that sugar was on sale, plus I had a coupon (saved $1.65 on 4 lbs). I also noticed that contact solution was $8.99, and you got $8.99 in ECB (making it free). Total spent out of pocket at CVS: $7.95. I received $9.99 in ECB ($1 ECB for my green bag tag).

So yes, this was a good start. Next, watch football, book airline tickets, clean the house.
Hope you're having a great weekend!